[This story from The Daily Beast is about efforts to simulate near death experiences and replicate some of the insights and perspective changes they can bring. See the original version for a seven minute video (also available via YouTube). For related stories about presence and death see “People Are Going Full ‘Black Mirror’ to Bring Back the Dead: What these businesses are doing for grieving and loss is what Uber did for taxis and buses: disrupting, innovating, and making things a whole lot more complicated” also from The Daily Beast, and “Technology that lets us “speak” to our dead relatives has arrived. Are we ready? Digital clones of the people we love could forever change how we grieve” from MIT Technology Review. –Matthew]

[Image: Credit: Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero / The Daily Beast / Getty]

UNREAL

One Man’s Quest to Build the Perfect Near-Death Simulation

Virtual reality could allow people to glimpse the experience of death like never before.… read more. “The quest to build the perfect near-death simulation”

[A new room at the University of California, Davis is designed to evoke (spatial) presence to more accurately measure reactions to food and other products; see the original version of the story below from the University for more pictures and a 1:41 minute video (also available on YouTube).  –Matthew]

[Image: Julien Delarue, associate professor in sensory and consumer science, in the new multi-sensory immersive room at UC Davis]

New Sensory Immersive Room at UC Davis Simulates Real-Life Environments for Product Testing

Space Features 360-Degree Video Experience With Variable Sounds, Smells and Air Conditions

By Tiffany Dobbyn
October 18, 2022

What makes a cup of coffee or an energy bar enjoyable is usually more than just the taste. The surrounding environment may also influence the experience.

With that in mind, the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of California, Davis, has constructed a new multisensory immersive room that can be used for product development, innovation and research.… read more. “New sensory immersive room at UC Davis simulates real-life environments for product testing”

[Deepfake videos are increasingly likely to cause viewers to overlook the role of technological manipulation in their media experience (i.e., experience presence), with dangerous consequences, but as this opinion piece from The Hill notes, shallowfakes – ”videos shared with misleading contexts or small edits” – pose a more immediate danger, and learning how to blunt their negative impacts will help prepare us to address the more sophisticated media manipulations to come. For much more information about this see a 90-minute video of a talk by the author on YouTube.  –Matthew]

[Image: A woman in Washington, DC views a manipulated video on January 24, 2019, that changes what is said by President Donald Trump and former president Barack Obama, illustrating how deepfake technology can deceive viewers. Credit: Rob Lever/AFP via Getty Images]

Shallowfakes are rampant: Tools to spot them must be equally accessible

By Sam Gregory, Opinion Contributor
August 26, 2022

[Sam Gregory is the director of programs, strategy and innovation of WITNESS, a human rights organization with global experience working on how people in crisis ensure their videos are trustworthy and more evidentiary.… read more. “Shallowfakes are rampant: Tools to spot them must be equally accessible”

[This story from Vice’s Motherboard reports on a political party in Denmark that is using artificial intelligence, personified by a (presence-evoking) chatbot called Leader Lars, to generate its policy platform. The idea goes beyond having a chatbot as a political candidate to allowing party members and others to shape the party’s platform by interacting with the AI. In addition to advocating political positions, a key goal is “raising more awareness about the role of AI in our lives and how governments can hold AI accountable to biases and other societal influences.” There are plans to expand the Party internationally. See the original story for a second image.  –Matthew]

This Danish Political Party Is Led by an AI

The Synthetic Party in Denmark is dedicated to following a platform churned out by an AI, and its public face is a chatbot named Leader Lars.… read more. “Denmark’s The Synthetic Party has a platform created by AI and its public face is a chatbot”

[This Wired analysis of Meta’s latest virtual reality headset and the company’s plans to incorporate less immersive means of accessing shared virtual spaces considers two problems: The still-limited quality of nascent VR technologies and the metaverse (however it’s defined) means that only a minority of consumers and even workers want to use them, and when the minority of people who do use VR meet and collaborate in virtual spaces with the majority who don’t, it produces an undemocratic and potentially dysfunctional distribution of immersion and presence. Theoretically the first problem will be solved when the technology is (finally) ready for a mass market, but the second problem is likely to persist. –Matthew]

What If the Metaverse Is Better Without Virtual Reality?

By Steven Levy
October 14, 2022

The most expensive three letters in technology are p-r-o. Whenever a company releases a product with that trio attached to its name, your wallet is going to take a beating.… read more. “Unequal presence: What If the metaverse is better without virtual reality?”