Theodore Rockwell

SOME REACTIONS TO THE VIRTUAL LIBRARIAN

Virtual book-launching party stirs up interest in real-world book, ‘The Virtual Librarian’

In some ways, it was just another book-launching party. The chatter of the literati, the excitement of meeting a new author, discussing new ideas. But, in many other ways, it was literally out of this world. The venue, for one, was different; a very stylish and attractive lounge called the Activ8 Café. There were some handout booklets available, with the book’s cover, “The Virtual Librarian,” on the front, complementary “blurbs” on the back cover, and some teaser excerpts inside.

Although there were only three copies of the booklets on display, that number remained unchanged even as copies were being snatched up and carried off by eager participants, whose dress and demeanor ranged from jeans-and-teeshirt to extravagantly elegant gowns. Everyone seemed to know each other, but there were no name-tags. Instead, all the names were printed in the air above them, and the names were exotic: imposing monikers like Evis Blackflag and JPatrick Mayne, curious handles like Persis Trilling, and playful names like Twirling Tornado.

The author, Ted Rockwell, addressed the crowd through an invisible microphone. Afterwards, members of the audience asked questions or made comments that appeared silently as printed words in the air.

It was indeed out of this world. The whole event was arranged by TheSLAgency.com and took place in the virtual world called “Second Life,” a thriving community of over ten million inhabitants, who build houses and shopping malls, discuss books and attend dances and concerts, and carry out every type of human activity you can imagine (and some you probably can’t, or shouldn’t). They spend real money, which is one reason they’ve attracted attention in the consensus illusion we are pleased to call “The Real World.” And yes, you can only get there via the Internet.

Participants represent themselves in that world via effigies called “avatars.” These they can costume as simply or elaborately as they wish. By pressing arrow keys on their computers, they can guide these figures through the virtual world. And they can do more. Approaching any horizontal surface, they can choose to sit on it. If it is a straight-backed chair or bench, they will sit properly upright. But if it is a lounge chair or couch, they can throw an arm over one side, and maybe sling a leg over the opposite side.

And how did they pick up those booklets? The booklets contain software that allows them to be picked up (like the software that lets you “wear” a glove). Moreover, the software enables the avatar to turn the pages, and each printed page can be viewed and read on the owner’s computer screen in the “real world.”

Will all this actually sell real books? A lot of Second Life inhabitants think so. Stay tuned.

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Librarians Intrigued by Software Assistants:
Unanticipated Problems and Opportunities Seen

The idea of assistants who manifest as human librarians, but are in fact wholly software, is sparking animated discussion among librarians and information technologists. These “virtual librarians” appear on a user’s computer screen as friendly “tech support” personnel, ready to answer questions and search out additional information sources. If desired, the user could select the gender, ethnicity and other traits of these friendly helpers, who apparently never become impatient or lose their tempers. So what’s not to like?

This subject will be discussed and debated in a Forum Thursday January 17 in the virtual community, “Second Life.” The possibility that these “librarians” could become autonomous figures with “ideas of their own” presents new problems as well as new opportunities.

“Virtual Worlds” like Dungeons & Dragons, SimWorld, and Second Life, build remarkably full and complex interactive on-line communities, but the “avatars” who inhabit these communities are merely effigies—ventriloquist dummies, so to speak—whose every thought and word is spoken, or typed, by a human participant on home computers. These avatars have no new thoughts or suggestions of their own.

Software assistants are something else. Up to now, they have been systems that handle pre-recorded phrases spoken by humans, cleverly selected by software rules and played on demand. An example is the voice you talk with when you want to know if your plane is on time. (There is really no one there, you know. You are talking to a machine.) And there is that patient lady who talks from your car’s GPS navigator: “Keep right. In 100 yards, you are going to turn onto the ramp to I-40 west. Not the first turn; the next right. And then prepare to keep left, because you are going to turn left at the stoplight at the bottom of the ramp.” Informative as she is, she has no original thoughts. Every word has been pre-recorded.

In 1966, Joseph Weizenbaum created the famous computer program “Eliza,” named after the lead character in G.B. Shaw’s play “Pygmalion.” Eliza was a mere 240 lines of software, that could recognize only 36 keywords and knew only 112 responses, 38 of which were constructed from client input. (E.g., “Do you think other members of your family also hate you?” and “How has this problem impacted your life?”) Despite the limited capability of this program, and of the computers of forty years ago, Eliza, as a virtual psychiatrist, managed to fool, for a while, a number of people who thought they were interacting with a living shrink.

A new science-fiction novel, “The Virtual Librarian: A Tale of Alternative Realities,” takes this idea even further. It presents a virtual librarian named Lib, whose software and computers incorporate today’s capabilities, plus two new features. Instead of selecting among a group of prerecorded phrases, Lib uses artificial vocalization, of the type introduced by Ray Kurtzweil about the time of Eliza. The book implies (optimistically) that this enables Lib to extend her conversation beyond any group of pre-recorded phrases. In addition, her software is evolutionary. That is, as she learns from practice, Lib can revise her software procedures, until even her programmers cannot recognize, little alone understand, how she operates.

The January 17 Forum to discuss this issue is open to all residents or visitors to Second Life, and will take place at 3PM PST (8PM EST), in the popular Activ8 Café, under the auspices of The SLAgency (see www.theslagency.com). Ted Rockwell, author of “The Virtual Librarian,” (www.members.authorsguild.net/​tedrockwell) will lead the discussion.

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Book Challenges Fearful Predictions
of Machine Domination of Humanity

As machines keep getting smarter, the pundits scare us with their nightmares of the future: Either machines will annihilate the human race or we will be dehumanized into zombies. “If we’re lucky, they’ll keep us around for pets.”

A new book challenges that dreary view. The Virtual Librarian: A Tale of Alternative Realities, a visionary science novel by Ted and Bob Rockwell, suggests another possible outcome: the machines will teach us the importance of our being completely human, so that they can fully carry out their necessary and complementary mechanical functions.

The 85-year old engineer and his son Bob started on The Virtual Librarian over 10 years ago in a series of lively and far-ranging discussions about the unrealized potentialities of virtual reality. When his son died suddenly and unexpectedly in 1998, he shelved the idea. Recently, realizing that science was overtaking his fiction, he picked it up and finished it.

Thematically, The Virtual Librarian is a distinct departure from the author’s award-winning non-fiction releases, including The Rickover Effect and Creating the New World. In addition, his marketing strategy departs from his previous books: Virtual Librarian will be promoted solely, at first, inside the popular virtual world, “Second Life.” Dr. Rockwell states simply: “Where better to find readers for a book about a virtual librarian than in a virtual community of over eleven million people?”

The story pulls the reader into amazing, little-known worlds with intriguing ideas and people, including research engineers and managers, information technologists, mind analysts, and professional psychics, all drawn from the author’s personal experience. The outcome is unexpected but satisfying, leaving the reader to ponder some of the problems and possibilities humanity faces as machines develop minds of their own.

The short, lighthearted story, set in the very near future, is enjoyable just as a story. Its first surprise is that it presents a wholly different kind of virtual world from those historically and currently in vogue. Other virtual worlds, from shoot-em-up arcade games through Dungeons & Dragons to Second Life, let participants represent themselves with on-screen effigies called “avatars.” Although avatars take on an endless variety of forms and costumes, they are functionally just ventriloquist dummies, whose every word and idea is supplied by their human sponsors. The Virtual Librarian, by contrast, is entirely software, like the voice you talk with when you call to see if your plane is late. Or the omniscient voice in your car’s GPS navigator.

This virtual librarian, called Lib, has two advantages over current models. First, she talks with computer-synthesized speech, rather than being limited to selecting among pre-recorded bits of human talk. Second, her operating software is designed to be evolutionary; that is, to change its structure as it learns from experience. Lib’s designers are slow to realize that complex, interactive systems with evolutionary operating procedures inherently become unpredictable and are uncontrollable from outside. It can—and this one does--develop a mind and an agenda of its own.

Is that the first spark of consciousness? Is that how a brain creates a mind? For further information on the author or the book, see: members.authorsguild.net/​tedrockwell/​works.htm


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