Tag: Animal Enhancement

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Wearables for Sled Dogs

On the last day of the ACI Conference (December 8, 2022), “Session 5: Sensors & Signals, Part II: Electric Boogaloo” started after the lunch break. Carlos Alberto Aguilar-Lazcano (CICESE-UT3) gave a talk on the topic “Towards a monitoring and emergency alarm system activated by the barking of assistant dogs”. The next presentation was “WAG’D: Towards a Wearable Activity and Gait Detection Monitor for Sled Dogs” by Arianna Mastali (Georgia Institute of Technology). According to her, studies have shown orthopedic injuries to be most common among sled dogs. These like to move very much, but repeatedly exceed their capabilities. To solve this problem, the team has developed a technical solution, a special wearable, with the help of which data on the condition of the animals are generated. “Spatial and Temporal Analytic Pipeline for Evaluation of Potential Guide Dogs Using Location and Behavior Data” was the title of the next talk, given by David L. Roberts (North Carolina State University), followed by “Comparing Accelerometry and Computer Vision Sensing Modalities for High-Resolution Canine Tail Wagging Interpretation”, given by Devon Martin (North Carolina State University). More information on the conference via www.aciconf.org/aci2022.

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Human and Animal Enhancement in the Context of Architecture

The 17th International Architecture Exhibition – the entire series, including the art section, is known as La Biennale di Venezia – ran from 22 May to 21 November 2021, with the Salon Suisse curated by architect and publicist Evelyn Steiner. On 18 November 2021, the event “Jethro Knights, Armor Guyver, and Mutant X: How transhumanists challenge architecture” took place. Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel gave a talk on “Human and animal enhancement in the context of architecture”, followed by a discussion with Mike Schaffner (a Swiss cyborg) and Prof. Dr. Georg Vrachliotis (an architect at TU Delft). First, the information and machine ethicist clarified key terms such as “human enhancement”, “animal enhancement”, “biohacking”, “bodyhacking”, “cyborg”, and “transhumanism”. He also brought in his own terms “robot enhancement” and “reversed cyborg” or “inverted cyborg”. He then presented examples of human enhancement and animal enhancement, including in the context of architecture: cats with chips getting into the house, humans with chips bringing the smart home to adaptations, animals and humans with chips and transmitters detected in time in traffic, and enhanced and improved organisms that can live on alien planets. He concluded by offering ethical considerations. He was open to the idea of cyborgs and critical of the transhumanism movement. The booklet on Salon Suisse is available here.