"->forside

Do Alex Varanese typical follow a schema in his everyday life? If yes, what contains this schema?
Yes and no. On the one hand I'm an artist, and a big part of the artistic process is letting your ideas flow as organically as possible. On the other hand, I have a background in software engineering, so it's hard for me to approach just about anything in life without a structured plan. I used to have a bad habit of giving up on projects once the novelty wore off, so these days my biggest concern is staying focused on a single endeavor until it's entirely complete. I keep pretty meticulous notes on everything I'm doing, which gives my projects an almost oscillating, wave-like progression; the to-do list gradually begins growing as I come up with more and more ideas, finally peaks at the midpoint, then slowly works its way back down as I complete each item. Once the queue is totally empty, my work is [usually] done.

What do you in general think of following a schema: Is it something that makes your live better or worser perhaps? And why that?
Like most good ideas, being too dogmatic will eventually yield diminishing returns. If I had to put a very rough heuristic on it, I'd say I find my greatest successes happen when I follow 70% of the plan and fill in the other 30% with improvisation. Numerous exceptions exist, however, favoring both extremes. I suppose the moral is that the best plans are usually only recognized in retrospect.

What is a perfect schema after your opinion for a human and for a robot?
I'm quite certain that eventually, the only difference between strong AI and humans will be that "we" evolved naturally in a bottom-up fashion, while "they" were built deliberately from the top down. Once complete, however, robots, androids or whatever you'd like to call them will realize the same thing humans are slowly realizing-that experience itself is all that truly has value. A structured plan, therefore, is only valuable to the extent that it allows us to enjoy ourselves; we should of course do everything we can to maximize safety, freedom and opportunity for all living things, but not to the point that it compromises our ability to appreciate our moment-to-moment experience. Whether one's sentience is organic or digital won't make a difference.

Similar case studies:
Japanese Robots in Pop Culture by Technotak
Kraftwerk: 3-D Video-Installation at Kunstbau

[image source: Alex Varanese]
[source: Vive Les Robots!]