ISPR Presence News

Category Archives: Presence in the News

News stories explicitly or implicitly related to presence from a wide variety of sources

Study: AI propaganda is dangerously persuasive

[This story from The Debrief describes a new study that compares the persuasiveness of propaganda written by humans to that of propaganda generated by artificial intelligence, with worrying results. The story includes extended comments by the lead author (and the original version includes a second image). See also the related WION story “Explained: How AI-generated Propaganda Poses a Real Threat This Historic Election Year.” –Matthew]

[Image: Original propaganda and GPT-3-generated AI propaganda were highly persuasive. Credit: Goldstein et al.]

AI Propaganda is Dangerously Persuasive and Could Be Used in Covert Operations, New Study Warns

By Micah Hanks
February 21, 2024

AI propaganda generated by popular large language models is remarkably persuasive, according to new findings that compared AI-generated content to real propaganda produced by countries like Russia and Iran.

In a recent study, portions of articles previously identified as material suspected of originating from covert foreign propaganda campaigns were provided to GPT-3.… read more. “Study: AI propaganda is dangerously persuasive”

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Virtual bar scenes are a new tool to study why people commit crimes in the heat of the moment

[This story from Scientific American reports on the latest uses of presence-evoking virtual reality in the study of criminal behavior. –Matthew]

[Image: Credit: Credit: Maskot/Getty Images]

Virtual Bar Scenes Are a New Tool to Study Why People Commit Crimes in the Heat of the Moment

Virtual-reality could assist researchers in decoding how emotions spur a decision to commit a crime

By Ingrid Wickelgren
February 21, 2024

A young man enters a busy, dimly lit pub in Amsterdam alone to await the arrival of friends. A faint dance beat plays in the background. A drunken man approaches the bar and orders drinks in a loud, obnoxious manner. He proceeds to taunt the newcomer, burp in his face and bark, “What? Am I hitting on you or what?”

On a virtual-reality (VR) headset where this scene plays out, a question is superimposed on the screen: “How do you feel at this moment?”… read more. “Virtual bar scenes are a new tool to study why people commit crimes in the heat of the moment”

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‘Soaring’ over hills or ‘playing’ with puppies, study finds seniors enjoy virtual reality

[This AP story uses examples and research results to illustrate how VR-based presence experiences are enjoyable and useful for older people. See the original story for seven more photos and a 1:44 minute video. –Matthew]

[Image: Retired Army Col. Farrell Patrick, 91, wears a VIVE Flow headset as he participates in Mynd Immersive VR therapy at John Know Village. Credit: AP/Lyne Sladky.]

‘Soaring’ over hills or ‘playing’ with puppies, study finds seniors enjoy virtual reality

By Terry Spencer
Updated February 19, 2024

POMPANO BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Retired Army Col. Farrell Patrick taught computer science at West Point during the 1970s and then at two private universities through the 1990s, so he isn’t surprised by the progress technology has made over the decades.

But when the 91-year-old got his first virtual reality experience recently, he was stunned. Sitting in a conference room at John Knox Village, a suburban Fort Lauderdale, Florida, retirement community, Patrick sat up straight as his eyes and ears experienced what it would be like to be in a Navy fighter jet flying off the Florida coast.… read more. “‘Soaring’ over hills or ‘playing’ with puppies, study finds seniors enjoy virtual reality”

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Stunning new AI adds realistic sound effects to any video

[Following the coverage of OpenAI’s Sora software, which lets users generate realistic video from text prompts, the AI voice company ElevenLabs announced new software that adds realistic sound effects to accompany the video, surely enhancing the presence experience of viewers/listeners. This story from New Atlas includes the details and a one-minute video demonstration (also available via YouTube). –Matthew]

[Image: “What if you could describe a sound and generate it with AI?” teases ElevenLabs as AI-generated sound effects and dialog are added to video footage generated by Sora from OpenAI. Credit: ElevenLabs.]

Stunning new AI adds realistic sound effects to any video

By Paul Ridden
February 19, 2024

Last week, OpenAI released a new AI model called Sora that could generate high-resolution video clips from text prompts. But they’re all essentially clever silent films. Now ElevenLabs has added background sounds to Sora-created footage.… read more. “Stunning new AI adds realistic sound effects to any video”

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OpenAI’s Sora text-to-video tool’s impact will be ‘profound’

[Sora, a new tool from OpenAI, produces impressively convincing videos from text prompts. This story from Computerworld provides some of the details and raises some frequently mentioned concerns, as well as a more novel one from Dan Faggella of Emerj Artificial Intelligence. See the original version of the story for two more images and two video examples. For related coverage, see stories from Gizmodo and CBS News. The Decoder reports that “Meta’s chief AI researcher says OpenAI’s ‘world simulator’ Sora is a dead end,” and that he says Meta has a better approach. In any case, presence-evoking technology is advancing quickly. –Matthew]

OpenAI’s Sora text-to-video tool’s impact will be ‘profound’

OpenAI is not the first to offer generative AI technology that can transform a text prompt into realistic video, but its tool appears to be among the most advanced to date.read more. “OpenAI’s Sora text-to-video tool’s impact will be ‘profound’”

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AI platorm Groq reduces presence-breaking lags

[One of the many aspects of interactions with media technologies that can ‘break’ presence is lag, the delay between the user’s action and the technology’s response. In a February 20, 2024 essay in Stratechery, Matthew Ball explains the need for reducing lag in interactions with AI:

“[T]he closer an AI comes to being human, the more grating and ultimately gating are the little inconveniences that get in the way of actually interacting with said AI. It is one thing to have to walk to your desk to use a PC, or even reach into your pocket for a smartphone: you are, at all times, clearly interacting with a device. Having to open an app or wait for text in the context of a human-like AI is far more painful: it breaks the illusion in a much more profound, and ultimately disappointing, way.… read more. “AI platorm Groq reduces presence-breaking lags”

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International Conference on Holodecks: Five key takeaways

[The story below from the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering reports on the latest efforts to make arguably the ultimate presence-evoking technology, Star Trek’s holodecks, a reality; see the original version of the story for three more pictures and three videos. –Matthew]

[Image: USC researchers led by Shahram Ghandeharizadeh and Heather Culbertson (Center) are inching closer to creating a real-world holodeck, using swarms of tiny drones to create 3D objects. Credit: Cooper Brown.]

International Conference on Holodecks: Five Key Takeaways

Immersive technology researchers at USC and beyond are bringing us one step closer to making Star Trek-like holodecks a reality.

By Anna Hsu and Caitlin Dawson with additional reporting from Bryce Tobiano
February 1, 2024

Shaking hands with a character from the Fortnite video game. Visualizing a patient’s heart in 3D—and “feeling” it beat. Touching the walls of the Roman Coliseum—from your sofa in Los Angeles.… read more. “International Conference on Holodecks: Five key takeaways”

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Radical empathy through virtual reality: Tech has power to transform the patient experience

[I’ve read, and posted, several encouraging stories over the years about how individuals have discovered, and formed organizations to utilize, the power of presence-evoking technologies to create new empathy and understanding, and hopefully behavior change, that counters harmful biases. The story below about Equity Commons is from Davidson College in North Carolina; the original version contains three more pictures, and there’s more information on the Equity Commons website. –Matthew]

[Image: Aubrey J. Grant ’10, M.D.]

Radical Empathy Through Virtual Reality: Tech Has Power to Transform the Patient Experience

By Jay Pfeifer
February 19, 2024

You are Tracy. You are a transgender woman. You are a patient at a cardiologist’s office. You know the statistics. You know that transgender persons have a higher incidence of cardiovascular disease, but the doctor’s office has never felt comfortable to you. You are sitting in a sterile examination room.… read more. “Radical empathy through virtual reality: Tech has power to transform the patient experience”

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The Seeing Eye Dog V2.0 (the robot) is shaping up as a gamechanger

[This story from New Atlas makes a detailed and compelling case for the use of robots to serve in the valuable role of seeing eye dogs, with characteristics of the robots likely evoking medium-as-social-actor presence for their blind or sight-limited users. See the original version of the story for eight more images and three videos. –Matthew]

[Image: The University of Glasgow has been working with the Unitree G01 platform for quite some time now, specifically to develop guide dogs for blind and partially sighted people. Credit: Glasgow University]

The Seeing Eye Dog V2.0 is shaping up as a gamechanger

By Mike Hanlon
February 16, 2024

An important new iteration of the robotic seeing eye dog was shown to the world this week, when Glasgow University showed off RoboGuide, an AI-powered quadruped for visually impaired people. The future for robotic canine assistants looks not just commercially huge, but also massively empowering for the world’s one-third of billion visually impaired people.… read more. “The Seeing Eye Dog V2.0 (the robot) is shaping up as a gamechanger”

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‘Ibelin’ is a unique documentary that illustrates the power of presence via World of Warcraft

[The new innovative documentary Ibelin explores the rich relationships formed solely in World of Warcraft by a quadriplegic gamer. The very positive review from Variety below provides a vivid description of the film, which at this writing has a 100% rating from reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes (note that not all reviews are as glowing; Hollywood Reporter’s reviewer writes that “if you’re already aware that the virtual spaces created by networked gaming are, indeed, valid and even valuable ways of forging social relationships, there isn’t much additional insight”). –Matthew]

[Image: Source: The Wrap]

‘Ibelin’ Review: A Shattering Documentary About a Gamer’s Secret Life

Acquired by Netflix at Sundance, Benjamin Ree’s unique documentary blends video games and real life to unearth hidden stories.

By Siddhant Adlakha

Between fascist propaganda, harassment campaigns, AI-generated Google results, and the collapse of digital publishing, it’s hard not to think of the internet as a wasteland.… read more. “‘Ibelin’ is a unique documentary that illustrates the power of presence via World of Warcraft”

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