The science of artificial intelligence (AI) is not as unemotional as it might first appear. Not only are researchers in the field now taking an interest in how to program affective capacities into artificial agents; there is also plenty of historical evidence that concerns about affect have been present in AI from the earliest years. Examination…[Read more]

Affect: An Exchange

Ruth Ley’s Summer 2011 article in our pages, “The Turn to Affect: A Critique,” engendered lively debate. We reprint the original article, with William E. Connolly’s response and Leys’s reply. From our Summer 2012 issue we add new responses by Adam Frank and Elizabeth A. Wilson and Charles Altieri and a further reply by…[Read more]

In the seventh chapter of Rome: the Book of Foundations, philosopher Michel Serres draws a distinction between what he calls “box-thought” and “sack-thought”. “I believe” Serres writes, “that there is box-thought, the thought we call rigorous, like rigid, inflexible boxes, and sack-thought, like systems of fabric”. Serres notes that while boxe…[Read more]