Kevin Warwick
Kevin Warwick is an English engineer and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Coventry University. He is known for his studies on direct interfaces between computer systems and the human nervous system, and has also done research concerning robotics.
Biography
Kevin Warwick was born in 1954 in Keresley, Coventry, England, and was raised in the nearby village of Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwickshire. His family attended a Methodist church but soon he began doubting the existence of God. He attended Lawrence Sheriff School in Rugby, Warwickshire, where he was a contemporary of actor Arthur Bostrom. He left school at the age of 16 to start an apprenticeship with British Telecom. In 1976, he was granted his first degree at Aston University, followed by a PhD degree and a research job at Imperial College London.He took up positions at Somerville College in Oxford, Newcastle University, the University of Warwick, and the University of Reading, before relocating to Coventry University in 2014.
Warwick is a Chartered Engineer, a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology and a Fellow of the City and Guilds of London Institute. He is Visiting Professor at the Czech Technical University in Prague, the University of Strathclyde, Bournemouth University, and the University of Reading, and in 2004 he was Senior Beckman Fellow at the University of Illinois in the United States. He is also on the Advisory Boards of the Instinctive Computing Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University, and the Centre for Intermedia at the University of Exeter.
By the age of 40, Warwick had been awarded a DSc degree by both Imperial College London and the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, for his research output in two entirely unrelated areas. He has received the IET Achievement Medal, the IET Mountbatten Medal, and in 2011 the Ellison-Cliffe Medal from the Royal Society of Medicine. In 2000, Warwick presented the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, entitled The Rise of Robots.
Research
Warwick performs research in artificial intelligence, biomedical engineering, control systems and robotics. Much of Warwick's early research was in the area of discrete time adaptive control. He introduced the first state space based self-tuning controller and unified discrete time state space representations of ARMA models. He has also contributed to mathematics, power engineering and manufacturing production machinery.Artificial intelligence
Warwick directed a research project funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, which investigated the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques to suitably stimulate and translate patterns of electrical activity from living cultured neural networks to use the networks for the control of mobile robots. Hence the behaviour process for each robot was effectively provided by a biological brain.Previously, Warwick helped to develop a genetic algorithm named Gershwyn, which was able to exhibit creativity in producing popular songs, learning what makes a hit record by listening to examples of previous successful songs. Gershwyn appeared on BBC's Tomorrow's World, having been successfully used to mix music for Manus, a group consisting of the four younger brothers of Elvis Costello.
Another of Warwick's projects involving AI was the robot head, Morgui. The head, which contained five "senses", was used to investigate sensor data fusion. It was X-rated by the University of Reading Research and Ethics Committee due to its image storage capabilities—anyone under the age of 18 who wished to interact with the robot had to obtain parental approval.
Warwick has very outspoken opinions about the future, particularly with respect to AI and its effect on the human species. He argues that humanity will need to use technology to enhance itself to avoid being overtaken by machines. He states that many human limitations, such as sensorimotor abilities, can be outperformed by machines, and he has said on record that he wants to gain these abilities: "There is no way I want to stay a mere human."
Bioethics
Warwick directed the University of Reading team in a number of European Community projects such as: FIDIS, researching the future of identity; and ETHICBOTS and RoboLaw, both of which considered the ethical aspects of robots and cyborgs.Warwick's topics of interest have many ethical implications, some due to his human enhancement experiments. The ethical dilemmas of his research are used by the Institute of Physics as a case study for schoolchildren and science teachers as a part of their formal Advanced level and GCSE studies. His work has also been discussed by the USA President's Council on Bioethics and the USA President's Panel on Forward Engagements. He is a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics Working Party on Novel Neurotechnologies.
Deep brain stimulation
Along with Tipu Aziz and his team at John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, and John Stein of the University of Oxford, Warwick is helping to design the next generation of deep brain stimulation for Parkinson's disease. Instead of stimulating the brain all the time, the goal is for the device to predict when stimulation is needed and to apply the signals prior to any tremors occurring, thereby stopping tremors before they start. Recent results have also shown that it is possible to identify different types of Parkinson's Disease.Public awareness
Warwick has directed a number of projects intended to interest schoolchildren in the technology with which he is involved. In 2000, he received the EPSRC Millennium Award for his Schools Robot League. In 2007, 16 school teams were involved in a project to design a humanoid robot to dance and then complete an assault course, with the final competition staged at the Science Museum, London. The project, entitled 'Androids Advance' was funded by EPSRC and was presented as a news item by Chinese television.Warwick contributes significantly to the public understanding of science by giving regular public lectures, participating with radio programmes, and through popular writing. He has appeared in numerous television documentary programmes on AI, robotics and the role of science fiction in science, such as How William Shatner Changed the World, Future Fantastic and Explorations. He also appeared in the Ray Kurzweil-inspired movie Transcendent Man along with William Shatner, Colin Powell, and Stevie Wonder. He has guested on several television talk shows, including Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Først & sist, Sunday Brunch and Richard & Judy. He has appeared on the cover of a number of magazines, for example the February 2000 edition of Wired.
In 2005, Warwick was the subject of an early day motion tabled by members of the UK Parliament, in which he was congratulated for his work in attracting students to science and for teaching "in a way that makes the subject interesting and relevant so that more students will want to develop a career in science."
In 2009, Warwick was interviewed about his work in cybernetics for two documentary features on the DVD release of the 1985 Doctor Who story Attack of the Cybermen. He was also an interview subject for the televised lecture The Science of Doctor Who in 2013.
In 2013, Warwick appeared as a guest on BBC Radio 4's The Museum of Curiosity with Robert Llewellyn and Cleo Rocos. In 2014, he appeared on BBC Radio 4's Midweek with Libby Purves, Roger Bannister and Rachael Stirling.
Robotics
Warwick's claims that robots can program themselves to avoid each other while operating in a group raise the issue of self-organisation. In particular, the works of Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana, once purely speculative have now become immediately relevant with respect to synthetic intelligence.Cyborg-type systems, if they are to survive, need to be not only homeostatic but also adaptive. Testing the claims of Varela and Maturana using synthetic devices is the more serious concern in the discussion about Warwick and those involved in similar research. "Pulling the plug" on independent devices cannot be as simple as it appears, because if the device displays sufficient intelligence, and assumes a diagnostic and prognostic stature, we may ultimately one day be forced to decide between what it could be telling us as counterintuitive and our impulse to disconnect because of our limited and "intuitive" perceptions.
Warwick's robots seemed to exhibit behaviour not anticipated by the research, one such robot "committing suicide" because it could not cope with its environment. In a more complex setting, it may be asked whether a "natural selection" might be possible, neural networks being the major operative.
The 1999 edition of the Guinness Book of Records recorded that Warwick performed the first robot learning experiment using the Internet. One robot, with an artificial neural network brain at the University of Reading in the UK, learned how to move around without bumping into things. It then taught, via the Internet, another robot at SUNY Buffalo in New York State to behave in the same way. The robot in the US was therefore not taught or programmed by a human, but rather by another robot based on what it had itself learnt.
Hissing Sid was a robot cat that Warwick took on a British Council lecture tour of Russia, where he presented it in lectures at such places as Moscow State University. The robot was put together as a student project; its name came from the noise made by the pneumatic actuators used to drive its legs when walking. Hissing Sid also appeared on BBC TV's Blue Peter, but became better known when it was refused a ticket by British Airways on the grounds that they did not allow animals in the cabin.
Warwick was also responsible for a robotic "magic chair" used on BBC TV's Jim'll Fix It. The chair provided the show's host Jimmy Savile with tea and stored Jim'll Fix It badges for him to hand out to guests. Warwick appeared on the programme himself for a Fix-it involving robots.
Warwick was also involved in the development of the "Seven Dwarves" robots, a version of which was sold in kit form as "Cybot" on the cover of Real Robots magazine in 2001. The magazine series guided its readers through the stages of building and programming Cybot, an artificially intelligent robot capable of making its own decisions and thinking for itself.