[This essay from Medium makes the case for when designers should, and should not, give AI-powered digital humans the characteristics that will evoke medium-as-social-actor presence. See the original version for a second image. –Matthew]

[Image: UneeQ’s Sophie is a flesh-and-bones digital human. Credit/Source: Digital Humans]

Digital humans: Do we really need this?

Anthropomorphic AI assistants promise the best interaction experience. But only because it’s technically possible to create digital humans and make them work online 24/7 doesn’t mean we should.

By Ilja Naumenko, UX Collective
April 2, 2024

The promise of human-like interaction with computers

We need to admit that the idea behind digital humans is fascinating. It has already been introduced on UX Collective with anticipation of how they will revolutionise human-machine interaction and improve UX.

Technology has reached the point where it has become possible to arrange an interaction with a machine that resembles the conversation with a real person on a level that was not achievable before.… read more. “When should anthropomorphic AI assistants be less human?”

[This story from NorthJersey.com describes how a New Jersey school is using virtual reality and presence to prepare students with autism for the stress of preparing for a flight at an airport. See the original version for a 16-image photo gallery. –Matthew]

[Image: Mar 27, 2024; Nutley, N.J., United States; The Phoenix Center is using VR to desensitize kids on the autism spectrum before they travel for spring break. Kaito M. uses the VR headset to simulate an experience at the airport. Credit: Anne-Marie Caruso-NorthJersey.com]

How NJ school uses virtual reality to help kids with autism prepare for airport stress

By Gene Myers, NorthJersey.com
April 2, 2024

If you think a TSA checkpoint is stressful, imagine how anxiety-producing it can be for a child with autism.

With spring break season upon us, it’s a problem facing many families in New Jersey, the state with the highest rate of autism in the country.… read more. “How NJ school uses virtual reality to help kids with autism prepare for airport stress”

[This EurekAlert! press release from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne or EPFL) describes new research that explores an intriguing type of presence illusion (or hallucination). In this illusion, which occurs outside the context of media use, the person perceives another human or other social entity who is not actually there (this has been labelled “para-presence”). The researchers found support for the idea that the illusion is connected to the common tendency to “overcount potentially harmful agents and predators.” Because heightened experience of the illusion is a marker for Parkinson’s disease, the researchers developed a technique using virtual reality and robotics to evoke the phenomenon and thereby measure a person’s susceptibility to experiencing it. The researchers’ work has been published in the journal Nature in the article titled “Numerosity estimation of virtual humans as a digital-robotic marker for hallucinations in Parkinson’s disease.”… read more. “The surprising effect of presence hallucinations on social perception”

[This link-filled essay from CNN argues that a series of recent technological advancements make it more likely that we’re living in a “computer generated” reality, the ultimate collective presence illusion. Whether we are or not, the increasingly common notion suggests the importance of, and concern about, simulations and deception in our society. –Matthew]

[Image: Credit: Warner Bros./Village Roadshow Pictures/Groucho Film Partnership]

Opinion: 25 years later, ‘The Matrix’ is less sci-fi than tech reality

By Rizwan Virk, who founded Play Labs @ MIT and is the author of ”The Simulation Hypothesis: An MIT Computer Scientist Shows Why AI, Quantum Physics and Eastern Mystics Agree We Are in a Video Game” and ”The Simulated Multiverse.” He is currently at Arizona State University’s College of Global Futures in the Center for Science and the Imagination. Follow him on X @rizstanford, on Instagram @rizcambridge and at zenentrepreneur.com… read more. “Opinion: 25 years later, ‘The Matrix’ is less sci-fi than tech reality”

[The original version of this story from the U.S. Argonne National Laboratory about a new, sophisticated teleoperation system developed for the remote clean-up of hazardous materials highlights the importance of presence with a prominent repetition of this quote from later in the text:

“Our first aim in telerobotic system design is to facilitate a ‘telepresence,’ to make the operator feel as though they are present within the hot cell, able to manipulate the objects with both hands, and to experience multimodal sensory feedback in a direct, natural way.” – Young Soo Park, leader, Argonne’s Robotics and Remote Systems Program in the Applied Materials division

For more details, see a 4:25 minute segment from the January 2024 Energycast report from the U.S. Department of Energy – Oak Ridge. –Matthew]

Argonne’s new dual-armed telerobotic system for hazardous waste clean-up successfully demonstrated; has potential for other applications

Revolutionary technology was designed to improve hazardous waste clean-up at nuclear sites

By Beth Burmahl
March 18, 2024

Because they can go where humans can’t, robots are especially suited for safely working with hazardous nuclear waste.… read more. “New dual-armed telerobotic system with human-like capabilities could revolutionize hazardous waste clean-up”