How to design an interface for aliens
March 18, 2006 7:37 PM Subscribe
Science-fictionish question here, but I figured if zombies were all right, hypothetical aliens would be too. Specifically, interface design for non-humans...
Let's say you were in charge of designing the central computer system for a space station where hundreds of different species from across the galaxy will congregate. You've got limitless access to whatever kind of technology you need, but you can't depend on anything that directly interfaces with the brain - too many different kinds of nervous systems to deal with.
So, how would you make a system as accessible as possible to as many different intelligent species as possible? You don't know beforehand what kind of perceptual systems the aliens will have, but you do know that they all have human-level intelligence, and therefore have to perceive the world in some way. It seems safe, for instance, to install black-and-white displays that use a wide spectrum of light as "white", since they'll be perceived pretty much the same way by anything that can see light. You'd need more than that, though; even restricting it to Earthlings, you'd need to take the blind into account. So, what else would you use? What would the standard input and output devices be?
Let's say you were in charge of designing the central computer system for a space station where hundreds of different species from across the galaxy will congregate. You've got limitless access to whatever kind of technology you need, but you can't depend on anything that directly interfaces with the brain - too many different kinds of nervous systems to deal with.
So, how would you make a system as accessible as possible to as many different intelligent species as possible? You don't know beforehand what kind of perceptual systems the aliens will have, but you do know that they all have human-level intelligence, and therefore have to perceive the world in some way. It seems safe, for instance, to install black-and-white displays that use a wide spectrum of light as "white", since they'll be perceived pretty much the same way by anything that can see light. You'd need more than that, though; even restricting it to Earthlings, you'd need to take the blind into account. So, what else would you use? What would the standard input and output devices be?
I think the science-fiction answer would be "whatever you want." A confluence of intelligent species like you suggest could only exist in fiction, yet your question attempts to apply real-world principles to the logitics. Except for the various imaginings and speculations of existing sci-fi, we don't currently possess the information to base any conjecture on. There are no extra-terrestrial intelligent species we know of. There is no extra-terrestrial life of any kind we know of. Other species may have evolved along an infinite number of paths, depending on the chemicals, energies, macro-environments and resources available to them during their histories. To assume that any two intelligent species would be similar enough to comfortably use a similar computer interface and encounter each other is to ignore some major odds. To assume the same about hundreds of species is just ridiculous.
I still love Star Trek, though. My point is that if you're going to start with a massive conceit, you don't have to sweat the details. Every species can be humanoid! Universal translation? No problem! Why wouldn't they breathe oxygen/nitrogen? After all, sci-fi is just an allegorical form of storytelling, so while you gotta have different species and different needs and wants to drive conflict, you don't nessecarily need an explanation for everything.
I like what orthogonality said, but then I usually do.
posted by chudmonkey at 8:03 PM on March 18, 2006
I still love Star Trek, though. My point is that if you're going to start with a massive conceit, you don't have to sweat the details. Every species can be humanoid! Universal translation? No problem! Why wouldn't they breathe oxygen/nitrogen? After all, sci-fi is just an allegorical form of storytelling, so while you gotta have different species and different needs and wants to drive conflict, you don't nessecarily need an explanation for everything.
I like what orthogonality said, but then I usually do.
posted by chudmonkey at 8:03 PM on March 18, 2006
Humans and human senses only cover a tiny little slice of the pie. You will need multiple input and output capabilities. What some creatures consider a nice black and white display, others will consider a panel radiating dangerously high levels of shortwave radiation. Maybe the terminals should be in niches or have heavy automatic curtains or something.
At a minimum I would suggest that terminals be able to sense and produce light, sound, EM and magnetic fields, and tactile bits would probably be useful. Scent might be hard, you would have to create molecules on the fly.
It might be handy if it could create a a generic image of whatever creature it was talking with and use that as sort of a sock puppet to deal with them. It probably should habitually study new creatures with an eye towards learning new languages as their owners arrive
posted by Ken McE at 8:05 PM on March 18, 2006
At a minimum I would suggest that terminals be able to sense and produce light, sound, EM and magnetic fields, and tactile bits would probably be useful. Scent might be hard, you would have to create molecules on the fly.
It might be handy if it could create a a generic image of whatever creature it was talking with and use that as sort of a sock puppet to deal with them. It probably should habitually study new creatures with an eye towards learning new languages as their owners arrive
posted by Ken McE at 8:05 PM on March 18, 2006
>A confluence of intelligent species like you
>suggest could only exist in fiction
If we start uplifting the creatures around us, it could exist right here in a few thousand years, no need to travel.
>Except for the various imaginings and speculations of
>existing sci-fi, we don't currently possess the
>information to base any conjecture on.
I must respectfully disagree.
>There are no extra-terrestrial intelligent species we know of. >There is no extra-terrestrial life of any kind we know of.
We do have thousands, millions maybe, of different living things right here at home. They are not identical to us. We can start by looking at their senses and extrapolating
>Other species may have evolved along an infinite number
>of paths, depending on the chemicals, energies, macro->environments and resources available to them during their >histories.
So we start off with what is close enough for us to understand, and we leave room for more plug-ins to the Wanderingmind Universal Translator.
posted by Ken McE at 8:20 PM on March 18, 2006
>suggest could only exist in fiction
If we start uplifting the creatures around us, it could exist right here in a few thousand years, no need to travel.
>Except for the various imaginings and speculations of
>existing sci-fi, we don't currently possess the
>information to base any conjecture on.
I must respectfully disagree.
>There are no extra-terrestrial intelligent species we know of. >There is no extra-terrestrial life of any kind we know of.
We do have thousands, millions maybe, of different living things right here at home. They are not identical to us. We can start by looking at their senses and extrapolating
>Other species may have evolved along an infinite number
>of paths, depending on the chemicals, energies, macro->environments and resources available to them during their >histories.
So we start off with what is close enough for us to understand, and we leave room for more plug-ins to the Wanderingmind Universal Translator.
posted by Ken McE at 8:20 PM on March 18, 2006
It's a very interesting question.
Ken McE is on the path I was venturing in:
"light, sound, EM and magnetic fields, and tactile bits". Before meaning, there must be a common medium.
If "tactile bits" can be used as "vibrations", it joins all the others in a universal database: wavelength. So you could have first an open detector of all wavelengths and begin an exploration. You shoot them at low level at your alien (X-rays, light, sound, physical vibrations); as soon as there is a reaction in any wavelength, you have established a common territory (or two, as in Close Encounters of the Third Kind). Then, the conversation can begin.
On preview: I totally agree with Ken. We should be able to understand (and talk to) all animals around us. They are supposed to have a simpler ways of communication. How come we are still not able to speak those "simpler" languages. And if we can't do it, we would be poorly equipped to get any "more advanced language" of any alien civilisation.
posted by bru at 8:32 PM on March 18, 2006
Ken McE is on the path I was venturing in:
"light, sound, EM and magnetic fields, and tactile bits". Before meaning, there must be a common medium.
If "tactile bits" can be used as "vibrations", it joins all the others in a universal database: wavelength. So you could have first an open detector of all wavelengths and begin an exploration. You shoot them at low level at your alien (X-rays, light, sound, physical vibrations); as soon as there is a reaction in any wavelength, you have established a common territory (or two, as in Close Encounters of the Third Kind). Then, the conversation can begin.
On preview: I totally agree with Ken. We should be able to understand (and talk to) all animals around us. They are supposed to have a simpler ways of communication. How come we are still not able to speak those "simpler" languages. And if we can't do it, we would be poorly equipped to get any "more advanced language" of any alien civilisation.
posted by bru at 8:32 PM on March 18, 2006
I'll argue that a creature could be imagined that would be unable to use any interface you design. orthogonality wins it.
posted by Eamon at 8:36 PM on March 18, 2006
posted by Eamon at 8:36 PM on March 18, 2006
bru: you're confusing transverse waves (e.g., EM waves) with longitudinal waves (e.g., sound). Although I suppose a sensory organ that handles both could evolve somewhere, I reckon it's much more likely that most life will have different sensors for each.
posted by Eamon at 8:41 PM on March 18, 2006
posted by Eamon at 8:41 PM on March 18, 2006
... then, thinking about my cat: smell has nothing to do with wavelength, but with certain types of molecules. So my wavelength machine wouldn't be able to communicate with smells, as cats and dogs do. On the other hand, cats and dogs see, hear and feel touch too. So there are good chances that our aliens have also several ways of interacting with the outside world. Once common medium is enough.
If we can perceive that they are there and if they perceive that we are a presence in the same space, I'd bet the medium of communication will be obvious.
posted by bru at 8:46 PM on March 18, 2006
If we can perceive that they are there and if they perceive that we are a presence in the same space, I'd bet the medium of communication will be obvious.
posted by bru at 8:46 PM on March 18, 2006
Ken McE: Usually when people disagree, they present an opposing view. What information about extra-terrestrial lifeforms does humanity have access to?
Like most people, I'm aware that there are "millions" of other species here on earth. That they are here on earth means that they all evolved under similar conditions, and the assumption that if sufficiently intelligent they could successfully use similar computer interfaces is not as unreasonable as those I was addressing.
Your suggestion that we "start off with what is close enough for us to understand" echoes my point: Human readers understand human senses and the interfaces that humans have previously designed. If you're creating sci-fi for humans to consume, tell your story with your settings and characters, create a universe of emotions and conflicts - don't over-explain the technical details and try to explain things using a scientific and social knowledge base that contains no precedent.
Please read a little more closely, and try not to refute things people haven't actually said. It's distracting.
posted by chudmonkey at 8:47 PM on March 18, 2006
Like most people, I'm aware that there are "millions" of other species here on earth. That they are here on earth means that they all evolved under similar conditions, and the assumption that if sufficiently intelligent they could successfully use similar computer interfaces is not as unreasonable as those I was addressing.
Your suggestion that we "start off with what is close enough for us to understand" echoes my point: Human readers understand human senses and the interfaces that humans have previously designed. If you're creating sci-fi for humans to consume, tell your story with your settings and characters, create a universe of emotions and conflicts - don't over-explain the technical details and try to explain things using a scientific and social knowledge base that contains no precedent.
Please read a little more closely, and try not to refute things people haven't actually said. It's distracting.
posted by chudmonkey at 8:47 PM on March 18, 2006
Read James White's Sector General books, which are set in a hospital that serves alien species. The plots revolve around xenobiological physiology and its attendant disorders, like medical mysteries, but the sick patients are aliens in need.
Also, Greg Egan's book Schild's Ladder deals (in part) with species able to manifest themselves in nearly any kind of body (though ordinarily, most individuals maintain themselves without bodies, as bodies represent tremendous physical liabilities) so facilities must accomodate many types of body.
You might also read Fred Lerner's story "Rosetta Stone" (reprinted in The Year's Best SF 5, ed. David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer), which involves a library scientist trying to discern the psychology of an alien species whose base has been recently discovered on the moon; and Ted Chiang's story "The Story of Your Life," again involving translation and alien psychology. (Here's a review of the latter, with spoilers.)
And I guess I should say that these suggestions are in case you are interested in learning how others have solved the problems you're setting. If you merely want solutions, I'm not much help.
posted by cgc373 at 8:47 PM on March 18, 2006
Also, Greg Egan's book Schild's Ladder deals (in part) with species able to manifest themselves in nearly any kind of body (though ordinarily, most individuals maintain themselves without bodies, as bodies represent tremendous physical liabilities) so facilities must accomodate many types of body.
You might also read Fred Lerner's story "Rosetta Stone" (reprinted in The Year's Best SF 5, ed. David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer), which involves a library scientist trying to discern the psychology of an alien species whose base has been recently discovered on the moon; and Ted Chiang's story "The Story of Your Life," again involving translation and alien psychology. (Here's a review of the latter, with spoilers.)
And I guess I should say that these suggestions are in case you are interested in learning how others have solved the problems you're setting. If you merely want solutions, I'm not much help.
posted by cgc373 at 8:47 PM on March 18, 2006
I reread "The Story of Your Life" last month: it is one of the best stories ever written on this topic.
There is also Heinlein "Stranger in a Strange Land", where the hero is himself a Rosetta Stone bearing two aliens way of communications, but I have not read it in a long whhile..
posted by bru at 9:11 PM on March 18, 2006
There is also Heinlein "Stranger in a Strange Land", where the hero is himself a Rosetta Stone bearing two aliens way of communications, but I have not read it in a long whhile..
posted by bru at 9:11 PM on March 18, 2006
So I guess Eamon is right: there can be no universal interface, only a long chain of Rosetta Stones or Rosetta Beings.
posted by bru at 9:43 PM on March 18, 2006
posted by bru at 9:43 PM on March 18, 2006
For the purposes of writing fiction, I'd paint with a rather broad brush. Is the space station a hub of diplomacy and commerce? Or is a welcome mat, laid out to greet who-knows-what that comes in from the Great Beyond? If it is the former, then all the necessary communication protocols are already in place, as each species contributing to the effort has had input in designing the interface.
Oops. Just re-read the post. OK, so we DON'T know the specifics of their perceptual schema. But we know they're going to end up on our space station? Will we have a variety of environements available for them? Do we know that much? That'll tell us a lot about how to communicate. And I presume they will arrive in spaceships, which will have to have some sort of communication devices aboard that we can then analyze and eventually interface with, while we build these guys a liveable habitat.
Is this question posed for its philosophical value (ie, are you really asking, what are all possible forms of perception outside those with which we are familiar?) or is it a problem you're facing in a fictional form?
posted by BitterOldPunk at 10:06 PM on March 18, 2006
Oops. Just re-read the post. OK, so we DON'T know the specifics of their perceptual schema. But we know they're going to end up on our space station? Will we have a variety of environements available for them? Do we know that much? That'll tell us a lot about how to communicate. And I presume they will arrive in spaceships, which will have to have some sort of communication devices aboard that we can then analyze and eventually interface with, while we build these guys a liveable habitat.
Is this question posed for its philosophical value (ie, are you really asking, what are all possible forms of perception outside those with which we are familiar?) or is it a problem you're facing in a fictional form?
posted by BitterOldPunk at 10:06 PM on March 18, 2006
orthogonality called this in the first post. For an arbitrary set of aliens there is no point to trying to come up with a one size fits all strategy -- just provide a schema they can plug into and call it a day.
posted by tkolar at 12:27 AM on March 19, 2006
posted by tkolar at 12:27 AM on March 19, 2006
Something to be careful of when using monitors or anything involving seeing through glass - most materials that let through light in our visible spectrum will block light from elsewhere in the spectrum. Aliens with eyes differently tuned might be quite perplexed at humans staring at a solid surface.
posted by luftmensch at 1:00 AM on March 19, 2006
posted by luftmensch at 1:00 AM on March 19, 2006
Well, it's pretty well established that the universal language that will be used to determine if life is indeed intelligent, is math. The movie 'Contact' showed us this, and a few others have as well.
Any intelligent creature that knows enough to travel outside their world will have a very good grasp of math. This is the only common language that will work. They'll have their own sensory method of calculators and computers most likely, though there's no way they will be like ours. They will most likely be able to communicate with ours, most likely through radio/light emmisions, as that's just about the only long range, reliable method of transmitting anything. I'm guessing that eventually a non-wireless method could be used, but would require years and years of work.
The key is that on one side, someone is going to have to come up with a key for using their system, someone very smart, and only after we have some basic knowledge of how the other species works. And the other side is going to have to have a very smart person to figure it out, and they'll have to know quite a bit about the other species as well.
Once that is setup, there will be no universal interface. Everyone will just carry around tablet PCs, PDAs, Wearable PCs, or Cybernetic Implants that will act as our own interface, and we'll just communicate via interfaces, most likely using some kind of odd universal binary machine language.
On and Off is the simplest form of communication, and as well as a good understanding of math, they'll also have to understand electricity. So Binary is a natural choice.
I'm not really sure how much of the above makes sense and is useful, I just thought I'd ramble on for a bit. ;)
posted by Phynix at 2:11 AM on March 19, 2006
Any intelligent creature that knows enough to travel outside their world will have a very good grasp of math. This is the only common language that will work. They'll have their own sensory method of calculators and computers most likely, though there's no way they will be like ours. They will most likely be able to communicate with ours, most likely through radio/light emmisions, as that's just about the only long range, reliable method of transmitting anything. I'm guessing that eventually a non-wireless method could be used, but would require years and years of work.
The key is that on one side, someone is going to have to come up with a key for using their system, someone very smart, and only after we have some basic knowledge of how the other species works. And the other side is going to have to have a very smart person to figure it out, and they'll have to know quite a bit about the other species as well.
Once that is setup, there will be no universal interface. Everyone will just carry around tablet PCs, PDAs, Wearable PCs, or Cybernetic Implants that will act as our own interface, and we'll just communicate via interfaces, most likely using some kind of odd universal binary machine language.
On and Off is the simplest form of communication, and as well as a good understanding of math, they'll also have to understand electricity. So Binary is a natural choice.
I'm not really sure how much of the above makes sense and is useful, I just thought I'd ramble on for a bit. ;)
posted by Phynix at 2:11 AM on March 19, 2006
There are so many things just in vision that you might not have considered. For example: we don't see polarization. Aliens might. We can't tell the difference between a blend of red and green light and yellow light (this is why TVs, LCDs, etc. work). Aliens might, and this might be true if they merely are sensitive to different (or more) colors of pure light, to say nothing of being able to see outside the human spectrum.
posted by kindall at 3:38 PM on March 19, 2006
posted by kindall at 3:38 PM on March 19, 2006
I hate it when secret government agencies use the green to do their research.
posted by hifimofo at 6:01 PM on March 19, 2006
posted by hifimofo at 6:01 PM on March 19, 2006
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You're approaching this all wrong. You'd give them a standard interface or protool to plug their equivalent of (handheld?) computers into. Their machines will match their sesory modalities. Your interface will match their computers. The interface might be something like a USB plug, it might be something like the REST protocol over HTTP over TCP/IP.
posted by orthogonality at 7:52 PM on March 18, 2006