Executives Evaluate AI Proposals for ETC Student Challenge
By Phil Lelyveld
April 17, 2023
On April 1, after students presented their ideas for AI-Assisted Experiences during ETC’s latest student challenge, a group of leading tech executive judges engaged the students in a spirited discussion of possibilities, opportunities and ethics related to artificial intelligence. Interactive Media and Game Design senior Toby Zhao and Universal Pictures’ Sherry Wong discussed the uses and limitations of AI in today’s creative process. Psychology graduate Erik Rollins asked whether the industry is thinking about how AI will influence society. Epic Games CTO Kim Libreri responded that society needs standards that will let us know when something is real versus synthetic or altered. It is already too easy to distribute manipulated or false information and rile people up, he said.
In response to a student asking whether AI will drive a decline in our ability to reason our way through problems, Sony Pictures Entertainment CTO Bill Baggelaar countered that, for some people, the calculator made math and science more accessible.
Paramount Pictures futurist Ted Schilowitz noted that “the way humanity today searches for information versus researches information has fundamentally changed the human condition.” He recommends that students should think about the ethical concerns of AI all the time.
ETC’s George Gerba noted that we are accustomed to things happening at the speed of Moore’s Law, but AI is evolving much faster than that and society is struggling to cope.
These discussions and other topics are covered in the 9-minute highlight reel.
See the original post here: https://www.etcentric.org/executives-evaluate-ai-proposals-for-etc-student-challenge/
Psychedelic replications in virtual reality show potential in treating depressive symptoms
... The researchers developed a computer program called Psyrreal that uses virtual reality to give people an experience similar to taking psychedelic drugs. They used a software called Unreal Engine to create different virtual environments that are surreal and meant to convey certain feelings and ideas associated with psychedelic experiences, like feeling connected to everything or losing your sense of self.
During the Psyrreal experience, participants start in a normal virtual world and then progress through 19 different psychedelic environments that use abstract shapes and patterns. The levels last between 30 seconds to 2 minutes. ...
On the first day, the participants completed a 15-minute VR demonstration, which included guided VR meditation, to familiarize themselves with the technology. On the second day, the participants completed the Psyrreal experience. During the study, a psychologist was nearby in case there was a mental health emergency, and a technician monitored the VR system. After the participants completed the VR experience, they were allowed to rest and then had a meeting with the psychologist to discuss their experience and answer some questionnaires.
Three validated questionnaires were used to assess different subjective aspects of the VR experience: the Psychological Insight Questionnaire, the Ego-Dissolution Inventory, and the Revised Mystical Experience Questionnaire. These three measures are commonly used in psychedelic research. The Emotional State Questionnaire was used to evaluate differences in depression symptoms before the experiment and at the two-week follow-up. ...
During the VR experiences, participants reported feeling positive emotions such as calmness, joy, pleasure, and fun. Some also reported having personal thoughts, changes in perspective, and alterations in their sense of self. Some also experienced somatic effects during the experience. ...
See the full story here: https://www.psypost.org/2023/04/psychedelic-replications-in-virtual-reality-show-potential-in-treating-depressive-symptoms-77096
AI can make movies, edit actors, fake voices. Hollywood isn’t ready.
... On Monday, the movie was released to the public, and OpenAI said it’s a template for how AI will democratize moviemaking. “Critterz is a vibrant example of how artists can use AI tools to unlock ideas that were once out of reach because of budget, time or resources,” Natalie Summers, a communications professional at OpenAI, said in a statement. ...
But that democratization does not come without risks to moviemaking and adjacent industries such as video games, according to media insiders and news reports. In China, artificial intelligence is already taking jobs away from video game illustrators in favor of software that can animate images in seconds, a report in Rest of World shows. ...
Nelson said it’s likely that AI will replace some jobs in Hollywood while also potentially creating more. He pointed to the entrance of computer-editing software, and how that replaced more manual movie-editing jobs and processes. ...
See the full story here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/04/14/ai-hollywood-filmmaking-dalle/
How An AI Asked To Produce Paperclips Could End Up Wiping Out Humanity
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"The AI will realize quickly that it would be much better if there were no humans because humans might decide to switch it off," he explained to HuffPost in 2014. "Because if humans do so, there would be fewer paper clips. Also, human bodies contain a lot of atoms that could be made into paper clips. The future that the AI would be trying to gear towards would be one in which there were a lot of paper clips but no humans."
The example given is meant to show how a trivial goal could lead to unintended consequences, but Bostrom says it extends to all AI given goals without proper controls on its actions, adding "the point is its actions would pay no heed to human welfare". ...
One prescient thought from Bostrom way back in 2003 was around how AI could go wrong by trying to serve specific groups, say a paperclip manufacturer or any "owner" of the AI, rather than humanity in general. ...
See the full story here: https://www.iflscience.com/how-an-ai-asked-to-produce-paperclips-could-end-up-wiping-out-humanity-68432
