Can current design and manufacturing technologies be incorporated into vernacular and traditional construction techniques? On the IE University campus in Segovia, a group of researchers from IE University, Princeton University, and the University of Bergamo built an unreinforced masonry structure called innixAR that demonstrates how digital technologies can enhance craftsmanship. This pavilion explores the intersection between the latest augmented reality (AR) innovations and 4D funicular design to allow vault craftsmen to build masonry structures without the need for physical guides and costly temporary molds. The project led by the architect Wesam Al Asali and Sigrid Adriaenssens is composed of three curved vaults that use fixed wooden ribs for support. The construction uses the technique of Guastavino tile, which uses quick-setting plaster and lightweight terracotta pieces to create thin compression structures.
The form was created using an innovative 4D funicular design method developed at Princeton University. This method uses a sequence of assembly and restricted form-finding to generate compression-only structures. In this case, inspired by the study of vernacular vault construction. Here, they worked closely with Salvador Gomis Aviñó, an expert in vault construction from Valencia with 20 years of experience in his trade.
Guided by holograms superimposed on their field of view through an Augmented Reality viewer, the builder was able to create a complex masonry structure without the need for molds, guides, and formwork that consume time and materials. ...
InnixAR is the result of a three-year-long collaboration between IE University's School of Architectureand Design and Princeton University's Form Finding Laboratory, and has been supported by the Teaching Initiative Fund of the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies. ...
... “Mitigating the risk of extinction from A.I. should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks, such as pandemics and nuclear war,” reads a one-sentence statement released by the Center for AI Safety, a nonprofit organization. The open letter has been signed by more than 350 executives, researchers and engineers working in A.I. ...
Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, two of the three researchers who won a Turing Award for their pioneering work on neural networks and are often considered “godfathers” of the modern A.I. movement, signed the statement, as did other prominent researchers in the field. ...
Eventually, some believe, A.I. could become powerful enough that it could create societal-scale disruptions within a few years if nothing is done to slow it down, though researchers sometimes stop short of explaining how that would happen.
The brevity of the new statement from the Center for AI Safety — just 22 words in all — was meant to unite A.I. experts who might disagree about the nature of specific risks or steps to prevent those risks from occurring, but who shared general concerns about powerful A.I. systems, Mr. Hendrycks said. ...
Here are seven things to pay attention to when talking about AI.
1. Don’t worry about sounding dumb ... And “prompt engineers” are just people who know how to talk to the AI to get what they want. ...
2. Be specific about what kind of AI you’re talking about ... are you talking about natural-language processing and language models, or computer vision? Or different applications, such as chatbots or cancer detection? If you aren’t sure, here are some good definitions of various practical applications of artificial intelligence.
3. Keep it real ... discussions about AI are usually better served by being pragmatic and focusing on the actual, not the what-ifs, Vincent adds. ...
4. Adjust your expectations ...It’s important to remember that language models aren’t search engines that are built to find and give the “right” answers, and they don’t have infinite knowledge. ...
5. Don’t anthropomorphize ... “Don’t give it a [gendered] pronoun, [or] say that it can feel, think, believe, et cetera.” Doing this helps feed into the misconception that AI systems are more capable and sentient than they are. ...
6. It’s all about power ... key to understanding who can afford to get an advanced degree in computer science and who is in the room during the AI model design process,” Johnson says. ... “Sometimes the conversation around AI is less about the technology and more about the people.” ...
7. Please, for the love of God, no robots ... “Remember that AI is basically computer programming by humans—combining big data sets with lots of compute power and intelligent algorithms,” says Sharon Goldman, a senior writer at VentureBeat. ...
... In a way, I’ve come to see “24 hours + of pure black screen in HD!” as a perfect microcosm of YouTube. YouTube is part entertainment platform, part information library… and part tools repository. ...
I even understand now why a seven-day-long video, which is just a timer counting down 168 hours, has 3.7 million views. One commenter summed it up thusly, “This is the timer you need when you need to stay active on your computer while working from home. No one will notice you were gone because this video keeps playing.” As long as the computer’s awake, I can be wherever I want.
Astronaut, fighter pilot, pediatrician. I turned myself into all of them in under a minute each. The AI-generated images did have noticeable issues: The uniforms were strange and had odd lettering, the stethoscope seemed to be cut in half and the backgrounds were warped and blurry. Yet the final images are fun, and the quality will only get better.
I used the free beta Firefly web suite, which just requires an Adobe account. The Firefly generative-fill tool is also available in the Photoshop beta app.
You don’t have to go to extremes when using AI to recognize, swap and remove objects in a photo. In FaceApp, for iOS and Android, I was able to change my frown to a smile—with the right amount of teeth! I was also able to add glasses and change my hair color. Some said it looked completely real, others who know me well figured something was up. “Your teeth look too perfect.” Invisalign, here I come. ...
Firefly adds a “content credential,”digital information baked into the file, that says the image was manipulated with AI. Adobe is pushing to get news, tech and social-media platforms to use this open-source standard so we can all understand where the images we see came from. ...
“Phygital art” may not be the most elegant phrase in the English language, but it is generating a buzz in certain circles.
“Phygital” is a portmanteau of physical and digital – describing artworks that bring together the best of both worlds to create something entirely new. ...
Dubai is seemingly determined to put this artform on the map.
The Art Dubai international fair has a digital component exploring new media and technology trends, including phygital works. ...
CNN asked some of Dubai’s most progressive art institutions why the city is among the vanguard of this innovative format, and whether phygital is a significant new movement in art, or just an unwelcome addition to our vocabulary. ...
Today, generative AI is in its infancy. The output is generally mediocre and easy to dismiss. But we dismiss it at our peril because today’s output is the worst that it will ever be. Each week it gets a little bit better. The pace of improvement is relentless.
The proverbial elephant outside the room at the WGA-AMPTP negotiations is not really a single big creature, it is more like a million mice. Together, they add up to a titanic unstoppable force. ...
No contract will shield any part of the motion picture business from the inexorably accelerating rate of AI-fueled innovation.
AI movie studios that generate hyperpersonalized content on demand
These concepts range from hypothetical to awkward to amazing. Please resist the impulse to dismiss them. Remain seated with your seatbelt fastened and watch this space. Turbulence is expected. ...
A personal anecdote on a human scale. A few weeks ago, I was a judge in a one-day movie hackathon held at the University of Nebraska’s Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Art.
The students began working at 9 AM on a Saturday morning with no more than instructions to generate a script for a 3-minute film using ChatGPT. Next, they generated images to accompany their scripts, using tools like Midjourney. Then they used other AI tools to animate the characters, render motion video sequences, generate character voices with dialog and crank out soundtracks. By the 6 PM deadline, seven teams had submitted 3-minute films, complete with music and titles. Almost 100% of these films were generated by artificial intelligence.
The films weren’t great. They were student films, after all. But they were complete, coherent linear narratives, all original and generated by AI. ...
When they graduate, these Carson Center students will be equipped with two superpowers that neither the WGA members nor the AMPTP seem to possess: fluencyand agency in the technological vernacular that will redefine video entertainment forever. ...
● In Vienna, Austria, a start-up created by a Portuguese entrepreneur has developed an augmented-reality audio technology, which in combination with a map-based guidance system, enables users to follow a route marked by audio signals. ● Enhanced by computer vision, the software directs users to safe obstacle-free spaces, and recognizes street signs and pedestrian crossings. ● Dreamwaves has also signed a partnership with a traffic signal management company to enable users with disabilities to request priority to cross at intersections.
... I found that the reality of drone delivery is still far from ideal, and people may be turned away by the steep learning curve. But at the same time, it was an exciting experience—the prospect of routine drone delivery feels more realistic than it’s ever been.
Meituan currently operates more than a hundred drones from five delivery hubs (or launchpads) in the city. Together, they completed over 100,000 orders in 2022. While the platform itself can deliver basically anything, from dinner to medicine to fresh flowers to electronic devices, the drones are mostly used for food and drinks. ...
... the drones never run into traffic—it’s easier to precisely control the time it takes for the meal to be delivered. The drones usually arrive within seconds of the estimated time. ...
Indeed, at exactly the time that the app predicted, the drone came and landed on the kiosk. I typed in my phone number on a screen, and after what sounded like robotic arms moving, a door lifted up, allowing me to retrieve a cardboard box. Inside was my order: an iced orange black tea, sealed in an insulating bag. My drink hadn’t spilled, and it was still cold. And I had finally accomplished my goal of getting a drone delivery in Shenzhen.
