Friday, March 7, 2008

Naming the Machine

After spending a week or so considering what how consciousness might effect our World Wide Machine, it's time to consider at least one more critical question:

What should we name this global machine?

Would you reuse a common digital name like "Interac" or "Flickr"? Do you fancy human type names like "Johnny 5" or "HAL"? Or, should we revisit Acronym names likes like "ENIAC" or the "WOPR"?
Rather than go with a male or female name, I'd like to suggest we name our global machine: "the Machine".

The name "Machine" is consistent with a few of my favourite intelligent machines. It would fit with the way the Robinson family from Lost in Space, had a robot named "Robot"; and the way the original Star Trek crew relied on a computer named "Computer". Not only that, it would be easy to remember!

Although I do like my idea, we're all technically the parents and teachers of this machine, so maybe we'd better make a collaborative decision? So global interconnected human-folk, what do you think? Feel free to leave your suggestion as a comment below...

Don't hesitate! If we don't get on this before too long, the Machine might decide to name itself as some unpronounceable symbol!

Photo credit: Scotto Bear
One final podcast on this topic: The Teacher 2.0 Podcast

5 comments:

Mike Redfearn said...

I suggest we name it 'Matrix'.

"What is the Matrix? Control. The Matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this (battery)." Morpheus

Doug said...

Is it true that you have two children named "Boy" and "Girl" and two pets "Cat" and "Dog"?

Rodd Lucier said...

Point well taken Doug... Maybe naming the Machine would help humanize it? It's difficult to imagine the Machine having a personality without a good name.

Matrix is definitely gender neutral, but it would be hard to get past the negative connotations of the film...

Doug said...

My first reaction was "Creator" but I was afraid that you had planted the Star Trek them in my mind!

Rodd Lucier said...

Eddie?
http://mashable.com/2008/03/14/ai-second-life/