Just what is phygital art, and why is Dubai going big on it?
“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. ...
See the full article here: https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/29/middleeast/dubai-phygital-art-spc-intl/index.html
Beyond Freud: Acquiring New Body Parts in Virtual Reality
- Avatars in VR are not limited by the biological constraints of the human body.
- In one study, participants reported they could move and even feel an extra arm fabricated in VR as their own.
- As technology advances, avatars may be endowed with multiple and/or unique sex organs.
See the full article here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-future-of-intimacy/202305/beyond-freud-acquiring-new-body-parts-in-virtual-reality
The movie studios should be worried about AI
...
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.
Consider the following from the past three weeks:
- GenAI text-to-animation
- GenAI photo-to-animation
GenAI music - GenAI recording artists
GenAI podcasts - GenAI actors
- GenAI humans
- GenAI advertising from Google and Meta
- 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. ...
See the full essay by Rob Tercek here: https://tercek.substack.com/p/the-movie-studios-should-be-worried?r=qs5c&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&fbclid=IwAR1eqgYDQXiOO1WVyWSE4VmQFLJ8SpkzlMUuvUt2aPaHWqV7d9rZVkaugNY
Dreamwaves: augmented reality with virtual 3D-sound to help guide the blind
● 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.
See the full story here: https://hellofuture.orange.com/en/dreamwaves-augmented-reality-with-virtual-3d-sound-to-help-guide-the-blind/
I ordered a bubble tea by drone in Shenzhen
... 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.
Shelly Palmer – Think About This
... At its annual Build conference, Microsoft announced upcoming features for its Bing Image Creator and Designer, which will allow consumers to verify whether content was AI-created.
This isn't as simple as slapping on a visible watermark. The new system uses cryptographic methods to sign AI-generated content with metadata about its origin, but there's a hitch; to read this signature, platforms will need to adopt the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) interoperable specification, a standard developed with input from industry heavyweights including Adobe, Arm, Intel, and Truepic.
Microsoft's move aligns with broader industry trends. As generative AI takes hold, other companies are also adopting mechanisms to track media provenance. ...
See the full story here at Shelly's Blog: https://www.shellypalmer.com/?mc_cid=6e19ef5ab9&mc_eid=f55a714a2f
Cannes Diary: Will Artificial Intelligence “Democratize Creativity” or Lead to Certain Doom?
... The panelists had more technologies for them to try. Bulakh’s company re-created James Earl Jones’ Darth Vader voice as it sounded in 1977 for the 2022 Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Vince Lombardi’s voice for a 2021 NFL ad that aired during the Super Bowl. Bulakh drew a distinction between Respeecher’s work and AI that is created to manipulate, otherwise known as deepfakes. “We don’t allow you to re-create someone’s voice without permission, and we as a company are pushing for this as a best practice worldwide,” Bulakh said. She also spoke about how productions already use Respeecher’s tools as a form of insurance when actors can’t use their voices, and about how actors could potentially grow their revenue streams using AI. ...
One of the panel buzz phrases was “hyper-personalized IP,” meaning that we’ll all create our own individual entertainment using AI tools. Saar shared a video from a company he is advising, in which a child’s drawings came to life and surrounded her on video screens. “The characters in the future will be created by the kids themselves,” he says. Avoyan said the line between creator and audience will narrow in such a way that we will all just be making our own movies. “You don’t even need a distribution house,” he said. ...
Why we need a “Manhattan Project” for A.I. safety
... As cognitive scientist Gary Marcus and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told Congress earlier this week, the singular nature of AI compels a dedicated national or international agency to license and audit frontier AI systems. ...
An AI trained on pharmaceutical data in 2022 to design non-toxic chemicals had its sign flipped and quickly came up with recipes for nerve gas and 40,000 other lethal compounds. ...
The favored metaphor in 2023 has been a Lovecraftian shoggoth, an alien intelligence on which we strap a yellow smiley face mask—but the human-likeness is fleeting and superficial. ...
It may be inauspicious to compare AI safety technology with the rapid nuclear weaponization of the Manhattan Project. In 1942, shortly after it began, the world's first nuclear chain reaction was ignited just a few blocks from where I sit at the University of Chicago. In July 1945, the world's first nuclear weapon was tested in New Mexico, and a month later, the bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. ...
See the full story here: https://www.salon.com/2023/05/18/why-we-need-a-manhattan-project-for-ai-safety/
Politicians and Tech Leaders Gather to Discuss Regulating AI
... “I can’t recall when we’ve had people representing large corporations or the private sector come before us and plead with us to regulate them,” said Durbin.
Montgomery called for “precision regulation” that would see rules governing AI in specific use-cases, rather than general regulation. “A chatbot that can share restaurant recommendations or draft an email has different impacts on society than a system that supports decisions on credit, housing, or employment,” she testified at “Oversight of AI: Rules for Artificial Intelligence.”
“How the technology might affect elections, intellectual-property theft, news coverage, military operations and even diversity and inclusion initiatives were among the topics covered,” The Wall Street Journal summarized, noting that “the hearing demonstrated the wide-ranging concerns prompted by rapid consumer adoption of AI systems like ChatGPT,” which rocketed to 100 million consumer users in two months. ...
Ownership of the data that AI trains on was a topic of discussion, with Altman saying “people should be able to opt out of having their data be used to train those models,” according to Politico. That subject had its own hearing Wednesday at a House session on “AI and Copyright Law.” ...
See the full story here: https://www.etcentric.org/politicians-and-tech-leaders-gather-to-discuss-regulating-ai/
Telly Offers Free Smart TVs Featuring Ads on Second Screen
Telly, the TV hardware startup led by Pluto TV co-founder Ilya Pozin, is shaking up industry business models by offering 500,000 smart TVs free to consumers willing to watch 24/7 ads on a split screen with streaming TV shows and movies. ...
Calling his new venture “the biggest innovation in television since color,” Pozin said that “for too long, consumers have not been an equal part of the advertising value exchange. Companies are making billions of dollars from ads served on televisions, yet consumers have historically had to pay for both the TV and the content they watch. All of that changes today.” ...
Pozin emphasized the technological sophistication of his new set:
- Smart Screen: In addition to the informational feeds, “Telly’s artificial intelligence helps deliver reviews and content recommendations, all on one device” and provides a voice assistant that responds to “Hey Telly.”
- Video Calling: Allows viewers to hold work meetings or watch content together with friends and family.
- Video Games: Telly’s “Game Room” is programmed with more than 40 video games, from arcade classics to immersive multiplayer experiences.
- Fitness: Telly is equipped with advanced motion-tracking for its complement of fitness programs.
See the full story here: https://www.etcentric.org/telly-offers-free-smart-tvs-featuring-ads-on-second-screen/
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