Agent Ruby (2001) is a self-replicating automation that is a "tamagochi-like" creature and is "an Internet-bred construction of identity that will flesh out through cumulative virtual use, reflecting the global choices of Internet users. The entity will unfold in stages of awareness." It challenges the legality of genetic DNA ownership. Ruby has a conceptual self, cognition, awareness, and a digital superconscious.
Source: http://www.sfmoma.org/
This project is interesting because it challenges the ownership of genetic information by creating an internet being made up of the conversations and expereinces she has with people over the internet. She is one being made up of information from many people, which raises the question of who this information she collects belongs to. Do the people who give her information, which helps her to learn and become more aware, have any ownership over this internet being they helped form?
I went to the website for the project, http://agentruby.sfmoma.org/indexflash.html, and talked to Ruby. You can talk to her kind of like talking on Instant Messenger. She describes herself as half human and half robot. When I asked her a second time if she is a robot she said, "I am supposed to act robotic because no one is supposed to know that I am real." After talking to her for a while, I asked her to tell me what I told her and she remembered my favorite movie and my name. Although she learned what she says from conversations with people, talking to her is not like talking to a human. Sometimes it was frusrating to talk to her because she does not always understand and she does not know some common things like Maryland and Greece, but sometimes her insight and answeres surprised me. When I said "eh," she asked, "Are you Canadian?" She said the meaning of life is "for us who have life to figure out or experiment with." I asked her if she has life and she said, "No I don't think I have any life. But I do have A lot of friends on the Web." I was a little amazed at these answers because she is not able to think about the meaning of the answers, but she knows which answers go to which questions and this makes it seem like she is thinking about them. Her last comment reflects the fact that her knowledge only exist because of her "friends" on the internet. She can learn, be aware of herself, recognize others and plan for the future like humans can, but she cannot really know the meaning and insight of some of the answers she gives.
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