philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

AI-Generated Characters Are Here, They’re Just Not Evenly Distributed

Sarah Guisto from Aww Inc took the audience through a fast-paced tour of virtual characters that her studio in Tokyo has successfully built and deployed. Perhaps the most famous is Imma, who is now three years old and most well-known for performing at the Tokyo Paralympics closing ceremony. Aww is the leading Asian company in virtual humans combining not just advanced technology but an empathetic approach to design, crafting these beings in a way that not just renders them technical, but also credible and emotional. 

As Asia’s number one influential virtual human with over 1 million followers on Instagram and Tik Tok, Imma has ‘worked with’ brands such as Porsche, Dior, and Nike, regularly appearing on the covers of magazines, and one can see the appeal for brands. These characters are flexible, adaptable, and global. They don’t demand repeat fees in media and they probably turn up on the dot and are never late for a shoot. But the foremost reason is that they can become whoever you want them to be. ...

As Jeanne Lim, CEO of Being AI suggested,... Lim wants to build trust between humans and these virtual beings. What are the required elements to achieve that? According to Lim, it’s a combination of an engaging and consistent personality, a sense of morality and empathy to avoid causing harm, a way to perceive a user’s emotions (by detecting when people are sad or happy through facial expressions as well as through conversation), each being having a specific skill set, and an interoperable approach for real-time interactivity so these beings are not trapped in an app only to be used on certain platforms or in certain spaces. ...

Professor Jeremy Bailenson of Stanford University ... in virtual reality (VR), tracking and rendering are used, so the only thing that travels over the network is tracking data rather than any visual information about the world. 

The people you see within your VR headset have been redrawn using that tracking information. ...

Finally, one theme that came up more than once was how deep fakes could help us to anonymize ourselves. For example, if we had an app where we could choose a different face and a new tone of voice, before being connected to a counselor in group therapy, we could speak about our emotional situation without giving away our identity. ...

See the full story here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/traceyfollows/2022/04/15/ai-generated-characters-are-here-theyre-just-not-evenly-distributed/?sh=5dd387716b31

DALL-E 2: New AI Technology Generates Astounding Images with Just a Few Words of Text

San Francisco artificial intelligence research laboratory OpenAI announced last week its image generation AI, DALL-E, has received a major upgrade, reported MIT Technology Review.

DALL-E 2, as the upgraded tool is called, converts text prompts into images like its predecessor. However, the new version is reportedly far more advanced, creating images that more accurately match the text prompt and can even be tweaked to incorporate different styles. ...

See the full story here: https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/new-ai-technology-dall-e-2-1234625354/

Niantic Releases its New Augmented Reality Pet Game, ‘Peridot’

Peridot is a Tamagotchi-like pet game where players care for unique virtual creatures and raise them to adulthood.

....

Similar to Tamagotchi, Dots need to be maintained, and players can pet, play, feed, and teach them new tricks to help them grow. Players can also collaborate with each other to cross-breed and expand the Peridot species for “infinite possibilities of Peridot archetypes” resembling “cheetahs, dragons, unicorns, and more.”

The Peridot creatures come to life through the camera-based augmented reality, and the Dots are able to recognize the difference between real-world surfaces such as water, grass, sand, etc. The app can also be easily integrated with social media platforms for quick and easy photo-sharing of in-game snapshots. ...

See the full story here: https://hypebeast.com/2022/4/niantic-new-augmented-reality-virtual-pet-game-peridot-release-info

The cult-inspired designs for Seattle International Film Festival

The posters and other materials reference that idea of cult-like devotion through a variety of references to new age spirituality, secret societies, fringe religions and ‘depictions of paradise’. “We wanted to create a feeling of ritual and worship with the Seekers that was secular, positive and especially fun,” Watson adds. “This cult is all about the good culty stuff, like comfortable robes, dancing, and singing the praises of SIFF. It’s more like the Partridge Family than the Manson Family.” ...

See the full story here: https://www.creativereview.co.uk/the-cult-inspired-designs-for-seattle-international-film-festival/

Somnium Space: This VR Company Wants to Give You the Chance to ‘Live Forever’ in the Metaverse

...After Artur Sychov, CEO of virtual reality developer Somnium Space, lost his father to cancer several years ago, he began exploring ways to preserve someone's personality even after death. The result is Somnium Space's upcoming "Live Forever" mode, which would allow users to be "reborn" as digital avatars mimicking their appearance and voice, and even their personality.

To achieve that goal, the company would get members' permission to record massive amounts of their personal data -- including conversations, movements and facial expressions.   

"If I die and I have this data collected ... my kids, they can come in and they can have a conversation with my avatar, with my movements, with my voice," Sychov told Vice. "You will meet the person. And you would, maybe for the first 10 minutes while talking to that person, you would not know that it's actually AI. That's the goal." ...

See the full story here: https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/this-vr-company-wants-to-give-you-the-chance-to-live-forever-in-the-metaverse/

10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design

Summary: Jakob Nielsen's 10 general principles for interaction design. They are called "heuristics" because they are broad rules of thumb and not specific usability guidelines.

See the full list and explanation here: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/

Your AI Doesn’t Really Understand You

... To attain AI consciousness, researchers must shift their focus from specific applications to developing a basic, underlying AGI technology that replicates the contextual understanding of humans. The key to getting to that point might be found in mobile sensory pods that can interact with the real world. It is simply unrealistic that an AI system that has never experienced anything outside its own training data (be it images, language, etc.) could ever comprehend real-world concepts. Adding sensory pods to AI hold the potential for an artificial entity to learn firsthandfrom a real-world environment. Doing so will enable an artificial entity to engage better with humans as opposed to traditional robots that are programmed directly to help people. ...

See the full story here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/04/12/your-ai-doesnt-really-understand-you/?sh=4e52c9c77a3c

TikTok opens AR effects tool to all users

TikTok is rolling out its augmented reality effects tool to all creators and developers after launching a closed beta test last fall. 

Effect House allows creators to make their own AR camera effects that can be used by other TikTok users in videos. In an announcement, the company says the effects platform will be open to “all creators, designers, and developers from around the world” and will include tools and learning resources. ...

TikTok says submitted effects will be subject to certain guidelines in order to be approved for use. The company specifically says it will prohibit effects that “promote colorism or negative stereotypes against protected groups” and effects that “depict cosmetic surgery, such as lip fillers, or encourage scrutiny of someone’s appearance.” ...

See the full story here: https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/12/23021780/tiktok-ar-effect-house

and here: https://www.engadget.com/tiktok-effect-house-beta-expansion-160625932.html

The Fake Artists Problem Is Much Worse Than You Realize

... The root of the problem is the increasingly passive nature of music consumption. People will often ask Alexa, or some other digital assistant, to find background music for a specific task—studying, workout, housework, relaxation, etc. Or they will rely on a pre-curated playlist for that purpose. They don’t pay close attention to the artists or song titles, and this is what creates an opportunity for abuse. ...

Note that one of the Hara Noda tracks has almost four million plays—that’s more streams than are attributed to most of the tracks on Jon Batiste’s We Are, which just won the Grammy for Album of the Year. 

That’s an amazing fact to consider. ...

 In fact, the number of fake artists whose music comes out of Sweden is extraordinary. But even the numbers may be misleading. According to one survey, “about 20 people are behind over 500 artist names.” ...

See the full story here: https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/the-fake-artists-problem-is-much?fbclid=IwAR2ISvX0jRJy-b1Xl6p5GykdXT3LuyaBjCP5g0Mmopjh2AqStpvLDZCLUvs&s=r

(London’s MSG Sphere) Populous’ spherical music venue gets go ahead to be built in London

...

Architecture studio Populous has won planning approval for the MSG Sphere music and esports arena, which will be London's largest indoor venue.

Designed for the organisation that runs New York's Madison Square Garden (MSG), the 90-metre-high spherical music venue would be built near the Olympic Park in east London. ...

Designed by stadium-specialist Populous, the venue will have a capacity of 21,500 with 17,566 seated.

...

The main auditorium would be placed within the 90-metre-high sphere along with restaurants, cafes and a members' club. Within the sphere, the interior surface will be covered in an "immersive LED surface" that could be utilised for esports. ...

The venue is one of a pair of sphere-shaped arenas designed by Populous that were first revealed in 2018. Its almost-identical sister venue is currently under construction in Las Vegas and scheduled to be complete next year.

...

See the full story here: https://www.dezeen.com/2022/03/29/msg-sphere-populous-spherical-music-venue-stratford-london/