[My friend Roy Yamanaka posted a story about this in the ISPR Presence Community Facebook group and it merits a post here too. After extended interactions with the natural language generator LaMDA, Google engineer Blake Lemoine has claimed that it is sentient. Futurism provides the summary below. Technologist Shelley Palmer noted the relevance to medium-as-social-actor presence in his Think About This email newsletter for June 13, 2022 when he wrote, “If Google created a conscious machine, that’s awesome. If they created a model that can fake us into thinking it’s sentient, that’s awesome too.” Coverage in The Verge provides more…

[Researchers in Japan have taken another step toward making fictional human-like robots and cyborgs that blur the line between us and machines possible in reality. I’d add the examples of The Bionic Woman, Humans and Westworld, among many others, to the ones in this story from Smithsonian magazine, which describes the new development of human-like skin for robots and places it in the larger context of medium-as-social-actor presence, its causes and implications. See the original story for a 25 second video and see Euronews (or YouTube) for a 1:40 minute report. –Matthew] [Image: A robotic finger coated with living human…

[A new optical illusion provides another vivid illustration that human perception is subjective and is raising familiar philosophical questions about the nature of reality, as described in this story from The Debrief (where the original includes three more images). Other coverage makes the point in different ways. Here’s an excerpt from The New York Times story: “Illusions like the expanding hole feed into the debate over whether all perception is, fundamentally, an illusion. ‘Everything we perceive is inconsistent with the physical reality of the world,’ Dr. Dale Purves [a neurobiologist and professor emeritus who studies visual perception at Duke University]…

[As if their work wasn’t challenging enough, health care workers too often have to manage agitated, disoriented and even aggressive patients. This press release from the National University of Singapore (NUS) describes a new programme that uses virtual reality and presence to train students to manage these situations effectively and with empathy and compassion. For more details see a story in The Straits Times; the version of the press release at Medical Xpress has two screenshots from the VR scenarios; and there’s a three-minute video produced by NUS on YouTube. –Matthew] [Image: Source: The Straits Times. Credit: Lianhe Zaobao] Keep…

[This story from EdSurge discusses the potential benefits – including presence and learning – as well as several concerns about a new program in which Meta is paying for the creation of digital versions of ten university campuses and providing Quest VR headsets for students. As the headline asks, “Is education moving to a ‘tri-brid’ model that flows between in-person, online and simulated environments?” The original version of the story includes two videos. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: naratrip / Shutterstock] With Money From Facebook, 10 Colleges Turn Their Campuses into ‘Metaversities’ Is education moving to a “tri-brid” model that flows between…

[Gizmodo describes the technology likely used to create the illusion that a waving younger version of the Queen was riding in a Gold State Coach during the Platinum Jubilee in London on Sunday (see the original story for a video and additional images). Reactions varied: Journalist Barry Malone tweeted “So a hologram of the queen drove through London in a golden carriage today. And people waved at it. They waved at a hologram,” which generated thousands of comments. Metro UK’s video is titled “Prince Charles stands as hologram of the Queen passes by in golden carriage”; the video shows other…

[I wish I’d seen and posted this IEEE Spectrum story when it appeared in late 2021 but it’s still all too timely. In it, Katie Winkle, Digital Futures Postdoctoral Research Fellow at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, describes the motivations for and the methods and results of a study she conducted to see if young people’s gender biases could be altered by replacing the typical subservient persona of robots with one that counter argues or counter attacks sexist remarks. The results suggest the power as well as the challenges in evoking of medium-as-social-actor presence. See the original story…

[This essay from Forbes is a ‘big picture’ look at how technologies, especially those that evoke different types of presence, are changing our personal relationships. For coverage of more specific changes, see three recent stories: “Metaverse dating could help you find real love in VR” (Lifewire), “Dating is getting hot in the metaverse, per exclusive Reddit data” (The Drum) and “Ghosting the machine: Humans, robots, and the new sexual frontier” (Harpers). –Matthew] [Image: Credit: Lucas Racasse / Getty. Source: Lifewire] What Digital Intimacy Is And How Technology Is Changing Our Relationships By KJ Dhaliwal, Forbes Technology Council; KJ Dhaliwal is…

[At a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland a United Arab Emirates official argued that murder in a future version of the metaverse should be an internationally recognized punishable crime. The story from IFL Science reports on the initial comments and immediate responses and I’ve compiled excerpts from several other stories that represent other responses. –Matthew] [Image: Credit: A. Solano / Shutterstock.com] Will Murder In The Metaverse Be Outlawed? Davos Discusses How To Police New Tech By Tom Hale May 27, 2022 If you’re “murdered” in the metaverse, should it be considered a distressing crime that…

[A new study in Scientific Reports found that “gentle strokes on the back” from a robotic hand, expressions of care by a synthesized robot voice, and especially the combination of the two, produced more positive moods and perceptions that the robot was more human-like (indicators of medium-as-social-actor presence). The summary of the study below is from BPS Research Digest (where it includes a different image) and you can follow the link within it to read the full article. The findings reinforce those of an earlier study summarized in a November 2021 PsyPost story titled “A pat on the hand from…

[Although it doesn’t mention presence, many of the examples of “disappearing displays” in this story from Electronic Design highlight their potential to evoke presence illusions (see the original story for two different images). I found this story after watching a 5:24 minute video about how the producers of Star Trek: Discovery have begun using a “real-life Holodeck” “augmented reality wall” to enhance the “realism” for both actors and viewers; the video is available on YouTube and for more information about this and other examples of these AR Walls see a July 2021 story in American Cinematographer. –Matthew] [Image: NBC’s Beijing…

[In a post on his blog, writer Matt Bell reports on a small test he conducted to see if computer-generated deepfake images of vacation photos would deceive his Facebook friends. In the process he raises important questions about the ethics and implications of not just selecting the “best” unaltered images to create an idealized impression of an event, or editing some of the images to further enhance the impression, but including completely artificial images of places and events that never occurred, something that is increasingly easy for even non-experts to do. As in so many contexts, it seems we’ll have…