Luke Robert Mason Research Director, Philter Phactory Director at Virtual Futures

@lukerobertmason @weavrs @virtualfutures

Virtual Persons in an Information Age

Online Social Network

Self Description

CyberCulture

“…boring!”

“…full of useless information.”

“…it will never take off.”

LOLCats.com

Cyber-

Cyber-Space

The EyePhone

The Future is not what it used to be…

2012

CyberCulture

Culture

iTunes Cover Flow

Virtual Music

iBooks

Virtual Books

PayPal Logo

Virtual Transactions

Tamagotchi

Virtual Pets

Second Life

Virtual Worlds

Social Media

Virtual Persons

Consensual Hallucination William Gibson

Abstraction

Information

Who are we?

1931

Harry Beck

Interfacing with Identity

Information

Infosphere

First, electronic sensors got smaller and better. Second, people started carrying powerful computing devices, typically disguised as mobile phones. Third, social media made it seem normal to share everything. And fourth, we began to get an inkling of the rise of a global superintelligence known as the cloud. The Data-Driven Life - The New York Times Magazine

Feltron Report

MyLifeBits, Gordon Bell

What’s the point?

The Facebook Mirror Photo Credit: Jennifer Daniel

A woman poses in a funfair hall of mirrors, circa 1935

"It's not 'who you share with,’ it's 'who you share as.” Chris Poole, 4Chan Founder (2011)

MySpace Angle

“Beauty through Obscurity”

Performing/ Subjectively Editing

"Media lets you clone pieces of yourself and send them out into the world to have conversations on your behalf. Even while you’re sleeping, your media —your books, your blog posts, your tweets—is on the march. It’s out there trying to making connections. Mostly it’s failing, but that’s okay: these days, copies are cheap.” Robin Sloan, Kanye West: Media Cyborg (2010)

Inforg (Information Organism)

“our machines are disturbingly lively, and we ourselves frighteningly inert.” Donna Haraway, 1991

Infomorph

Darth Weavr

King Kong, @thatbigmonkey

Womblr

@parkinn & @HenryWeavr

“I Tweet Dead People”

“I'm feeding my own persona into the Weavrs' system and mapping out my own personal history. The Weavrs post, tweet, listen to music, check in to places and learn new skills. I'm currently running a series of 40 year old versions of myself that live in Munich” Marcus Brown, Army of Me

Internet of Things

“The next logical step in this technological revolution (connecting people anytime, anywhere) is to connect inanimate objects a communication network.” ITU Internet Report, 2005

Siri

Service-Based Personality

Talkie the Toaster

Function-Based Personality

Weavrs

Emergent Personality

Darth Vader

Roomba Hoover

George Clooney

SaSi Sex Toy

In Case You Wondered, a Real Human Wrote This Column Steve Lohr - New York Times, September 10, 2011

Computer Wins on Jeopardy! Trivial, It’s Not. John Markoff - New York Times, February 16, 2011

Siri, Can You Hear me? Sam Grobart - New York Times, October 13, 2011

1.  We Turn Our (Life) Narratives into Data. 2.  Weavrs turn our Data Into Narratives.

Thank you!

http://weavrs.com @weavrs

http://philterphactory.com