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William Shatner, Star Trek's Captain Kirk, Takes on an AI Chatbot

Star Trek actor William Shatner, 90, speaks to the news media after his flight with three others in a capsule powered by Blue Origin's reusable rocket engine New Shepard on a landing pad near Van Horn, Texas, US, October 13, 2021. REUTERS/Mike Blake
Star Trek actor William Shatner, 90, speaks to the news media after his flight with three others in a capsule powered by Blue Origin's reusable rocket engine New Shepard on a landing pad near Van Horn, Texas, US, October 13, 2021. REUTERS/Mike Blake
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William Shatner, Star Trek's Captain Kirk, Takes on an AI Chatbot

Star Trek actor William Shatner, 90, speaks to the news media after his flight with three others in a capsule powered by Blue Origin's reusable rocket engine New Shepard on a landing pad near Van Horn, Texas, US, October 13, 2021. REUTERS/Mike Blake
Star Trek actor William Shatner, 90, speaks to the news media after his flight with three others in a capsule powered by Blue Origin's reusable rocket engine New Shepard on a landing pad near Van Horn, Texas, US, October 13, 2021. REUTERS/Mike Blake

Legendary "Star Trek" actor William Shatner has been spending time exploring the new frontier of artificial intelligence.
The actor best known for playing Captain Kirk on "Star Trek" talked with ProtoBot, a device that combines holographic visuals with conversational AI, and grappled with philosophical and ethical questions about the technology.
"I'm asking ProtoBot questions that ordinarily a computer doesn't answer," Shatner told Reuters. "A computer answers two plus two, but does ProtoBot know what love is? Can ProtoBot understand sentience? Can they understand emotion? Can they understand fear?"
The ProtoBot device was developed by hologram technology provider Proto Inc with conversational AI developer CodeBaby. It will be released on Sept. 8 and available free to owners of Proto M or Proto Epic hologram units.
The smaller Proto M unit costs around $6,500 while the life-size Proto Epic sells for $65,000. Proto intends to release a cheaper model for consumers in the next 18 months.
Shatner is a paid adviser for Proto.
Raffi Kryszek, the principal AI architect and head of innovation at Proto Hologram, said the device was designed to learn from conversations but it can only create something when prompted to do so.
"It shouldn't just think about it on its own," he said.
Lawmakers around the world are racing to put safeguards around the use of AI as the technology rapidly evolves.
Proto hopes its device will be used by educators, scientists and businesses to come up with new ideas, or for medical diagnostics, advice or just companionship.
"We're in a crossroads everywhere," Shatner said. "We're going to burn up or we're going to exceed all expectations and this is part of the crossroads. This will help us decide the current way to move on or it will defeat us. We're at a really interesting time in history."

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Kris Kristofferson, Influential Singer-Songwriter, Dies at 88

US actor musician Kris Kristofferson attends the premiere of "Dreamer" at the Mann Village theater on October 9, 2005 in Westwood, California. (AFP)
US actor musician Kris Kristofferson attends the premiere of "Dreamer" at the Mann Village theater on October 9, 2005 in Westwood, California. (AFP)
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Kris Kristofferson, Influential Singer-Songwriter, Dies at 88

US actor musician Kris Kristofferson attends the premiere of "Dreamer" at the Mann Village theater on October 9, 2005 in Westwood, California. (AFP)
US actor musician Kris Kristofferson attends the premiere of "Dreamer" at the Mann Village theater on October 9, 2005 in Westwood, California. (AFP)

Kris Kristofferson, who became one of the most influential American singer-songwriters of his time with works such as "Me and Bobby McGee," as well as becoming a successful actor, died Saturday at the age of 88, according to a family statement.

Kristofferson had been suffering from memory loss since he was in his 70s. A family spokesperson said in a statement that Kristofferson died peacefully at his home in Maui, Hawaii, surrounded by family, but a cause of death was not listed.

Kristofferson was a Renaissance man - an athlete with a poet's sensibilities, a former Army officer and helicopter pilot, a Rhodes scholar who took a job as a janitor in what turned out to be a brilliant career move.

Kristofferson first established himself in the music world as a songwriter in the country music capital of Nashville - writing hits such as the Grammy-winning "Help Me Make It Through the Night,For the Good Times," and one-time girlfriend Janis Joplin's plaintive No. 1 hit, "Me and Bobby McGee."

In the early 1970s he became well-known as a performer with a rumbling, unpolished baritone, as well as an in-demand actor, notably opposite Barbra Streisand in "A Star Is Born," one of the most popular films of 1976.

Kristofferson was born in Brownsville, Texas, on June 22, 1936, and moved frequently because his father was a general in the Air Force. After graduating from Pomona College in California, where he played football and rugby, Kristofferson attended Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship and then fulfilled the family tradition by joining the Army.

He went through the Army's elite Ranger School, learned to pilot helicopters and reached the rank of captain. In 1965 Kristofferson was offered a position teaching English - he was enthralled by the works of poet William Blake - at the US Military Academy in West Point, New York, but he turned it down in order to head to Nashville.

Kristofferson became a janitor at the Columbia Records studio because it would give him a chance to offer his songs to the big-name stars recording there. He also worked as a helicopter pilot ferrying workers between Louisiana oilfields and offshore drilling rigs.

During that time Kristofferson wrote some of his most memorable songs, including "Help Me Make It Through the Night," which he said he penned atop an oil platform.

"NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE"

Kristofferson's best songs were filled with seekers, wastrels and broken souls trying to find love, redemption or relief from the hangover that life had given them. The broken-hearted narrator of "Bobby McGee," a song Kristofferson said was inspired by the Federico Fellini film "La Strada," summed it up with the line, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

"Kris brought (country music) kind of from the dark ages up to the present-day time, made it acceptable and brought great lyrics - I mean, the best possible lyrics," Willie Nelson, an early role model for Kristofferson, told CBS's "60 Minutes" in a 1999 interview. "Simple but profound."

Kristofferson recorded four albums with Rita Coolidge, the second of his three wives, in the 1970s and joined Nelson, Cash and Waylon Jennings in the country music super group the Highwaymen in the 1980s and '90s.

Kristofferson's rugged good looks led to roles in movies such as "Cisco Pike,Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid,The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea,Convoy,Heaven's Gate,Lone Star" and "Blade."

After his initial stardom, Kristofferson took on causes such as the United Farm Workers and spoke out against US government involvement in Nicaragua and El Salvador in the 1980s.

Kristofferson began experiencing debilitating memory loss in his mid-70s and his performances suffered for it. Doctors told him it appeared to be the onset of Alzheimer's disease or dementia, possibly brought on by blows to the head while boxing and playing football and rugby in his younger days.

But in 2016, his wife, Lisa, told Rolling Stone magazine that Kristofferson had been diagnosed with Lyme disease, which can cause memory problems, and that after treatment and stopping Alzheimer's medication, his memory began to return partially.

Kristofferson kept active with a 2016 tour that included performances with Nelson and stops in Europe. That year he also marked his 80th birthday by releasing "The Cedar Creek Sessions," an album featuring live versions of his best-known songs.

Kristofferson and his third wife, Lisa, whom he married in 1983, lived on the Hawaiian island of Maui for more than 30 years. He had eight children.