[This story from Motherboard describes a worrisome application of the fast-evolving ability of AI to generate convincingly realistic presence illusions, in this case of important but completely fictional events. Technology expert Shelly Palmer posted this reaction to the story on his blog:

“In George Orwell’s 1984, the book’s hero, Winston Smith, is a minor party functionary living in a London that is still shattered by a nuclear war that took place not long after World War II. He belongs to the Outer Party, and his job is to rewrite history in the Ministry of Truth, bringing it in line with current political thinking. […] Orwell’s novel highlights the dangers of totalitarianism and the importance of individual freedom and free thought. I don’t think anyone ever believed that rewriting history was going to be a real thing. Thanks to a few motivated individuals and their generative AI coworkers, Orwell’s dystopian world has arrived.”… read more. “People are creating records of fake historical events using AI”

[This short story from Firstpost reports on a potentially disturbing but thought-provoking new art installation that provides a simulated first-person experience of death. More information about the installation and the artist who created it is available from the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV)’s Melbourne Now website. A 7:08 minute video, “Facing the Fear of Death in Virtual Reality,” is available on YouTube. And information about other highlights of the Melbourne Now event, including some related to presence, is available from the Australian Arts Review and the Herald Sun. A related, earlier simulation by “Beijing’s biggest funeral parlor” is described in a 2018 story in Sixth Tone. –Matthew]

[Image: Source: Herald Sun. Credit: Sean Fennessy]

New virtual reality ‘death simulator’ lets users see what happens to them after they die

By Mehul Reuben Das
March 28, 2023

As morbid and solemn as it can be, there are some who find death very fascinating.… read more. “New virtual reality ‘death simulator’ lets users see what happens to them after they die”

[The era in which we can’t distinguish even high-definition video of real people from quickly and easily created computer-generated imagery (CGI) is fast approaching. The Ars Technica story below describes a recent demonstration of the MetaHuman Animator motion-capture animation technology this way: “Epic showed off the new machine-learning-powered system, which needed just a few minutes to generate impressively real, uncanny-valley-leaping facial animation from a simple head-on video taken on an iPhone.” The coverage in PC Gamer adds this:

“The potential here is huge. Not only will major studios be able to create facial animations in a fraction of the time, allowing for increasingly realistic interactions in upcoming games, but smaller developers will be able to create mocap-quality scenes with just a phone and a PC, instead of an entire studio full of 4D cameras and those little white dot things.”

See the original stories for the 5:08 minute video demonstration and 1:07 trailer the authors describe (also available on YouTube here and here).  … read more. ““Uncanny valley-leaping” facial animation: Epic’s new motion-capture tech has to be seen to be believed”

[The day when you regularly send a digital version of yourself to act as your agent in interactions with other people (and their own digital agents) may not be far off. This short story from Fast Company reports that the video dating app Snack now lets users send “AI-trained avatars of themselves … out into Snack’s virtual dating world to chat with other users” and “if [it] thinks there could be a match, it’ll report to you so you can decide for yourself and start a real human-to-human conversation.” A bit ironic given that one of the app’s tag lines is “Show the Real You.” Slate has a related, longer story titled “My Epic, Embarrassing, Shockingly Successful Ploy to Get My Friend a Date Using A.I.: What happens on Tinder and Bumble when your wingman is ChatGPT.” –Matthew]

Gen Z dating app Snack lets your AI-trained avatar go on dates so you don’t have to

We live in the future now and this is a thing that’s happening.… read more. “Gen Z dating app Snack lets your AI-trained avatar go on dates so you don’t have to”

[The Colorado-based UCHealth system has added a social presence-evoking augmented reality feature to its mobile app that allows patients (and others) to interact with virtual dogs wherever they have their smartphone or other device. Details are in the story below from UCHealth Today, where the original includes a second picture. A December 2022 Healthcare IT News story notes the connection with presence:

“In August [2022], [Nicole]Caputo [UCHealth senior director of Experience and Innovation] told Healthcare IT News that UCHealth plans to keep building AR experiences, in both iOS and Android, that educate patients and improve overall connectivity with their health. ‘The technology has come a long way in the past few years,’ she said.

Virtual reality and AR experiences that are built on the foundations of empirically supported therapies may provide an ideal companion to some in-person mental health therapies, according to Risa Weisberg, chief clinical officer at mental health technology vendor BehaVR.… read more. “UCHealth augmented reality app brings digital dogs to life to boost patient well-being”

[A new omni-directional treadmill designed to increase (especially spatial) presence for home users of virtual reality is available on a limited basis now and should be widely available later in 2023, as reported in this story from SlashGear (where the original includes three different pictures). Engadget adds this detail about the Omni One and its development:

“You might remember the Omni, which launched on Kickstarter in 2013 and was backed within 24 hours. The Omni One is modelled after the Omni Pro, a larger but similar version available in entertainment venues worldwide. The round — or omni directional — treadmill is four feet wide by five feet long, and it weighs about 250 pounds. The safety bit comes in through a vertical bar that holds a shoulder and waist strap, with the latter having a controller positioned on either side of it.… read more. “Virtuix Omni One 360-degree treadmill for consumers lets you step into VR worlds without boundaries”

[The news has been filled with stories about the dramatic, fast-moving evolution of AI-based media. For example, Interesting Engineering’s report on the latest version of AI image generating software Midjourney is titled “Believe it or not: This image was generated by an AI program using three text prompts. This marks the end of photography as we know it. It’s synthography from here on.” (See more coverage and examples from PetaPixel and Ars Technica). And CNN reports on “5 jaw-dropping things GPT-4 can do that ChatGPT couldn’t.” But the two first-person posts below by tech journalists point to the dangers we’ll face as these presence-evoking technologies become available to members of the wider public to set up and use on their own computers without guardrails. –Matthew]

[From Beebom; see the original story for more pictures]

I Created My Own AI Image Generator and Now I’m Worried

By Akshay Gangwar
March 17, 2023

Remember when Prisma was the ultimate “AI” image editing app out there?… read more. “Presence peril: When ‘anyone’ can use their own rapidly evolving AI image and chatbot tech”

[During the pandemic many restaurants required customers to access written menus only by scanning a QR code with their smartphone. But a richer, more presence-evoking format is possible: The U.S. diner chain Denny’s has created what it calls an immersive augmented reality menu experience, as reported in the two stories below from The Daily Meal and The Takeout. Will these “mouth-watering” presence experiences become more common? –Matthew]

[Image: Customer viewing Denny’s augmented reality menu on smartphone. Credit: Denny’s]

Denny’s Unveils A New Augmented Reality Menu Experience (Plus New Items)

By Jennifer Waldera
March 15, 2023

Initially named Danny’s Donuts, Denny’s first opened its doors in 1953 in Lakewood, California. Now, 70 years later, the iconic diner has more than 1,400 locations across the United States and serves a whole lot more than just donuts.

The brand is largely known for its Grand Slam burgers and its punny Moons Over My Hammy egg sandwich.… read more. “Denny’s launches a new immersive AR menu featuring food that jumps off the page”

[An innovative and now award-winning open-access digital publication provides insights into the history of presence-evoking technologies, as reported in this story from The Brown Daily Herald (see the original version for two more images). A Brown University press release includes this:

“’Shadow Plays’ explores popular forms of entertainment in the 18th and 19th centuries, such as stereoscopes and moving panoramas, that were used to transport viewers to a new world. Through six case histories and eight interactive simulations, [Author Massimo] Riva shows how those early innovations foreshadowed present-day virtual, augmented and extended reality experiences.

[Allison] Levy, [director of Brown University Digital Publications] said that Riva’s scholarly project is not only fascinating but also urgently needed. At a time when the gap between simulation and reality is closing, Levy said, ‘Shadow Plays’ can help researchers and the general public alike draw on history to better answer questions about the potential psycho-social effects of augmented and virtual reality.… read more. “Brown U. professor’s digital publication ‘Shadow Plays’ explores analog precursors to virtual reality”

[In this VentureBeat guest column (adapted from an earlier piece in Big Think), a long-time participant in and observer of the evolution of presence-evoking technologies explains why virtual reality is about to revolutionize education. See the original version of the column for three different images, and the Dreamscape Learn website for more information and videos such as “Dreamscape Learn: A new form of education” (also available on YouTube). –Matthew]

Virtual reality is finally ready to revolutionize education

By Louis Rosenberg, an early pioneer of virtual and augmented reality, and the founder of Immersion Corporation, Microscribe 3D, Outland Research and Unanimous AI. He was also a professor of educational technology at California State University.
March 4, 2023

I had an experience 25 years ago that changed my perspective on computing and education. Back then I was running the early virtual reality (VR) company Immersion Corporation.… read more. “Virtual reality is finally ready to revolutionize education”