philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Facebook still a great place to amplify pre-election junk news, EU study finds

A study carried out by academics at Oxford University to investigate how junk news is being shared on social media in Europe ahead of regional elections this month has found individual stories shared on Facebook’s platform can still hugely outperform the most important and professionally produced news stories, drawing as much as 4x the volume of Facebook shares, likes, and comments.

The study, conducted for the Oxford Internet Institute’s (OII) Computational Propaganda Project, is intended to respond to widespread concern about the spread of online political disinformation on EU elections which take place later this month, by examining pre-election chatter on Facebook and Twitter in English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish, and Swedish.

Junk news in this context refers to content produced by known sources of political misinformation — aka outlets that are systematically producing and spreading “ideologically extreme, misleading, and factually incorrect information” — with the researchers comparing interactions with junk stories from such outlets to news stories produced by the most popular professional news sources to get a snapshot of public engagement with sources of misinformation ahead of the EU vote.

See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/21/facebook-still-a-great-place-to-amplify-pre-election-junk-news-eu-study-finds/

Sony Unit to Produce Movies, TV Shows Based on Games

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has launched PlayStation Productions to transform the company’s 100+ video games into film and television projects. The production company, headed by Asad Qizilbash, is at work on its first projects on Sony Pictures’ Culver City lot. SIE Worldwide Studios chair Shawn Layden, who also oversees the new production company, noted that, with 25 years developing games, the company believes “now is a good time to look at other media opportunities across streaming or film or television.”

The Hollywood Reporter, in an exclusive, notes that the original content library includes “adventure to sci-fi to action to mystery to horror.” “Instead of licensing our IP out to studios, we felt the better approach was for us to develop and produce for ourselves,” said Qizilbash. “One, because we’re more familiar, but also because we know what the PlayStation community loves.”

Although film adaptations of games haven’t always worked well, Hollywood is friendlier to the concept of adapting games largely because today’s directors and producers play them.

Layden agreed, noting that his goal is, “to be the first gaming entity to do something lasting and meaningful in a completely different medium.”

See the full story here: http://www.etcentric.org/sony-unit-to-produce-movies-tv-shows-based-on-games/

Facebook Turns to Robots to Advance Artificial Intelligence

Humans learn from experience to not “do dumb things,” and Facebook chief AI scientist Yann LeCun is trying to create a version of that for robots, saying that systems that learn “models of the world” are our best shot at advancing artificial intelligence. Unlike a rewards/demerits-based reinforcement learning, Facebook’s tack is to instill curiosity, by giving the robot freedom to try new things. With New York University, Facebook also dramatically reduced the number of tries to teach a robotic arm to grasp an object.

Wired reports that the technique is self-supervised learning, in which the robot “tries new things and updates a software model, which can help it predict the consequences of its actions.”

Facebook’s project marries AI and robots, which up until now have been more isolated pursuits, and “robots have remained fairly dumb.” Researchers, however, are now using robots “as platforms to refine [AI] software algorithms.”

“If you solve it in one context, you’ll solve it in the other context,” said LeCun. In this way, “AI is making robots smarter, but robots are also now helping advance AI.”

See the full story here: http://www.etcentric.org/facebook-turns-to-robots-to-advance-artificial-intelligence/

Virtual reality helps police in dealing with autistic people

This week, the company announced a partnership with Chicago police to train officers by using virtual reality headsets. It will be making the program, developed with the help of mental health and autism experts, available to police departments across the U.S.

For now, they offer two training modules: one for autism and another for dealing with people who have schizophrenia.

“The ability to tell the difference between someone who’s acting in an unusual way that may be due to their autism versus someone who could be a risk to you can be a really fine line,” said David Kearon of the advocacy group Autism Speaks. “When you’re trying to make that judgment very quickly, that’s where we see mistakes made.”

See the full story here: https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2019/05/24/virtual-reality-helps-police-learn-to-interact-with-autistic

Upcoming 10th Augmented World Expo To Shine Light On Immersive Computing

Inbar called 2019 “The Year of the Creator,” as a good number of authoring tools aimed at equipping the next generation of creators with easy-to-use object oriented tools for building XR experiences without code are coming of age. “The race to build an index of the real world is on, with companies working to align digital content with the physical environment on a global scale in order to enable next-level augmented reality,” said Inbar.

See the full story here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/charliefink/2019/05/24/upcoming-10th-augmented-world-expo-to-shine-light-immersive-computing/#56e9dc165128

McGraw-Hill developing augmented-reality apps to improve learning outcomes in chemistry courses

Funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, the initiative aims to drive more active learning and to improve learning outcomes in introductory chemistry courses, which according to McGraw-Hill, often have high failure rates, especially among underserved student populations.

The AR tools will be available on both Apple and Android mobile platforms, and will eventually be embedded into McGraw-Hill’s digital courseware and learning platforms.

“We believe that with the right combination of technology, content and pedagogy this tool has the ability to have a significant impact on students in the future,” Virkler said. “AR does not replace other effective technology resources, but rather enhances the experience and the ability to reach a variety of different students with diverse learning modalities.”

See the full story here: https://edscoop.com/mcgraw-hill-developing-augmented-reality-apps-to-improve-learning-outcomes-in-chemistry-courses/

Senators Press For National Artificial Intelligence Strategy

Several U.S. senators have proposed the Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act to create a national AI strategy and fund federal R&D in this growing area to the tune of $2.2 billion. The initiative’s $2.2 billion would be awarded over a five-year period to multiple federal agencies. At the same time, although the European Commission put out guidelines for artificial intelligence technology, some experts are saying that the tech companies that participated in drafting guidelines compromised them to protect their own interests.

VentureBeat reports that the Act, created by senators Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), would fund agencies such as the Department of Energy and the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and would also “establish a National AI Coordination Office to lead federal AI efforts, require the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study the effects of AI on society and education, and allocate $40 million a year to NIST to create AI evaluation standards.”

Wired reports that Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz philosopher Thomas Metzinger criticized the European Commission’s AI guidelines saying that, “too many of the experts who created [them] came from or were aligned with industry interests.” He and another group member drafted a list of prohibited AI uses, including autonomous weapons, but “tech’s allies later convinced the broader group that it shouldn’t draw any ‘red lines’ around uses of AI.” In the formal draft, “red lines” became “critical concerns,” which “appeared to please Microsoft.”

Harvard law professor Yochai Benkler also believes that, “industry has mobilized to shape the science, morality and laws of artificial intelligence … becoming too influential over how society governs and scrutinizes the effects of AI.”

Signs of pushback include San Francisco’s ban of the city’s use of facial recognition and the Algorithmic Accountability Act, introduced by senators Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and representative Yvette Clarke (D-New York), to require companies to “assess whether AI systems and their training data have built-in biases, or could harm consumers through discrimination.”

See the full story here: http://www.etcentric.org/senators-press-for-national-artificial-intelligence-strategy/

Samsung deepfake AI could fabricate a video clip of you from a single photo

A Samsung artificial intelligence lab in Russia developed the technology, which was detailed in a paper earlier this week.

Here's the downside: These kinds of techniques and their rapid development also create risks of misinformation, election tampering and fraud, according to Hany Farid, a Dartmouth researcher who specializes in media forensics to root out deepfakes.

"Following the trend of the past year, this and related techniques require less and less data and are generating more and more sophisticated and compelling content," Farid said. Even though Samsung's process can create visual glitches, "these results are another step in the evolution of techniques ... leading to the creation of multimedia content that will eventually be indistinguishable from the real thing."

In the paper, Samsung's AI lab dubbed its creations "realistic neural talking heads."

The system starts with a lengthy "meta-learning stage" in which it watches lots of videos to learn how human faces move. It then applies what it's learned to a single still or a small handful of pics to produce a reasonably realistic video clip.

Unlike a true deepfake video, the results from a single or small number of images fudge when reproducing fine details. For example, a fake of Marilyn Monroe in the Samsung lab's demo video missed the icon's famous mole, according to Siwei Lyu, a computer science professor at the University at Albany in New York who specializes in media forensics and machine learning. It also means the synthesized videos tend to retain some semblance of whoever played the role of the digital puppet. That's why each of the moving Mona Lisa faces looks like a slightly different person.

See the full story here: https://www.cnet.com/news/samsung-ai-deepfake-can-fabricate-a-video-clip-of-you-from-a-single-photo/

What the Oculus Quest Can Teach Us About the Future of Mixed Reality (Pass-thru video)

The Quest solves this issue with what is being called a guardian system. Upon first putting on the headset in a new environment, users get to see a grayscale, low-resolution view of the real world, and are then being asked to map out their play space. After that first setup, a grid appears every time a user is in danger of leaving that play space when in VR. Go further, and the Quest switches back to the grayscale view of the real world. Take a step back, and you are back in VR.

That experience of the real world lurking just beyond the borders of your VR playspace is oddly fascinating. The Quest uses its integrated cameras for video pass-through, which explains why the images are as low-fidelity as they are. The cameras are primarily meant to track the controllers used with the headset, as well as the position of the headset itself in a 3D space, making it possible to lean into VR experiences, and reach out for virtual objects.

But even with those visual constraints, walking up to a Quest guardian and sticking your head through it feels like a profound transition from one world to another.

And while the Quest currently uses a guardian system to keep you safe in VR, future guardian systems may be outward-facing, and alert you that immersion is just a step away.

See the full story here: https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/oculus-quest-guardian-system-mixed-reality-1203223870/

Snapchat Takes Down Porn Lenses, May Start Cat-and-Mouse Game

Snapchat quickly removed a handful of x-rated augmented reality lenses Tuesday, dealing a blow to efforts by adult entertainment company Naughty America to promote its subscriptions to the service’s users. However, the porn studio may not be quite done with Snapchat just yet, as it is still distributing the source files that allow Snapchat users to build their own naughty lenses.

Naughty America had begun to distribute Snapchat lenses to its users earlier this week. The lenses allowed Snapchat users to super-impose porn stars in various states of undress over images of their own living room, and share the results with their friends on the service.

If anything, the conflict between Snapchat and Naughty America goes to show that user-generated augmented reality isn’t immune to the very same content moderation issues that video sites and other user-generated content hosting services have been dealing with for some time. And as companies like Snapchat are making it easier to build lenses for their services, they’ll likely face these issues a lot more often.

See the full story here: https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/snapchat-porn-lenses-removed-ar-1203223589/