Lifeboat Foundation

Cornell University researchers have developed a robot, called ReMotion, that occupies physical space on a remote user’s behalf, automatically mirroring the user’s movements in real time and conveying key body language that is lost in standard virtual environments.

“Pointing gestures, the perception of another’s gaze, intuitively knowing where someone’s attention is—in remote settings, we lose these nonverbal, implicit cues that are very important for carrying out design activities,” said Mose Sakashita, a doctoral student of information science.

Sakashita is the lead author of “ReMotion: Supporting Remote Collaboration in Open Space with Automatic Robotic Embodiment,” which he presented at the Association for Computing Machinery CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Hamburg, Germany. “With ReMotion, we show that we can enable rapid, dynamic interactions through the help of a mobile, automated robot.”

And, imagine if every penny sank into this was available for AI research right now.

Meta sank tens of billions into its CEO’s virtual reality dream, but what will he do next?

Continue reading “A moment’s silence, please, for the death of the Metaverse” »

Yeah, feels a bit harder to take it seriously when the company paying for the study has so much skin in the game.

How to build VR Haptic gloves to feel in VR, for really cheap.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to build your own budget VR Haptic Gloves! (Prototype 4)

Continue reading “How to build cheap VR Haptic Gloves to FEEL VR” »

In a new study in Nature Machine Intelligence, researchers Bojian Yin and Sander Bohté from the HBP partner Dutch National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science (CWI) demonstrate a significant step towards artificial intelligence that can be used in local devices like smartphones and in VR-like applications, while protecting privacy.

They show how brain-like neurons combined with novel learning methods enable training fast and energy-efficient spiking neural networks on a large scale. Potential applications range from wearable AI to speech recognition and Augmented Reality.

While modern artificial neural networks are the backbone of the current AI revolution, they are only loosely inspired by networks of real, biological neurons such as our brain. The brain however is a much larger network, much more energy-efficient, and can respond ultra-fast when triggered by external events. Spiking neural networks are special types of neural networks that more closely mimic the working of biological neurons: the neurons of our nervous system communicate by exchanging electrical pulses, and they do so only sparingly.

Discover the fascinating world of digital immortality and the pivotal role artificial intelligence plays in bringing this concept to life. In this captivating video, we delve into the intriguing idea of preserving our consciousness, memories, and personalities in a digital realm, potentially allowing us to live forever in a virtual environment. Unravel the cutting-edge AI technologies like mind uploading, AI-powered avatars, and advanced brain-computer interfaces that are pushing the boundaries of what it means to be alive.

Join us as we explore the ethical considerations, current progress, and future prospects of digital immortality. Learn about the ongoing advancements in brain-computer interfaces such as Neuralink, AI-powered virtual assistants like ChatGPT, and the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. Will digital immortality redefine humanity’s relationship with life, death, and existence itself? Watch now to uncover the possibilities.

Continue reading “Digital Immortality Uncovered: How AI Could Help Us Live Forever” »

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In January, new reports on Apple’s long-awaited augmented reality/virtual reality headset were released. And if what’s in these reports is even partially true, Apple is poised to give the world one of the most jaw-dropping, powerful pieces of technology in history (again) — which is why it was a bit surprising that this news didn’t make more of a splash.

This is the same company that has fans enter lotteries for tickets to corporate keynote addresses! Yet, outside of the usual tech blogs and a few newspaper columns, the future of Apple’s AR/VR device went largely unnoticed.

In Silicon Valley, some of the brightest minds believe a universal basic income (UBI) that guarantees people unrestricted cash payments will help them to survive and thrive as advanced technologies eliminate more careers as we know them, from white collar and creative jobs — lawyers, journalists, artists, software engineers — to labor roles. The idea has gained enough traction that dozens of guaranteed income programs have been started in U.S. cities since 2020.

Yet even Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI and one of the highest-profile proponents of UBI, doesn’t believe that it’s a complete solution. As he said during a sit-down earlier this year, “I think it is a little part of the solution. I think it’s great. I think as [advanced artificial intelligence] participates more and more in the economy, we should distribute wealth and resources much more than we have and that will be important over time. But I don’t think that’s going to solve the problem. I don’t think that’s going to give people meaning, I don’t think it means people are going to entirely stop trying to create and do new things and whatever else. So I would consider it an enabling technology, but not a plan for society.”

Continue reading “We all contribute — should we get paid for that?” »

Make a template based on a 1980s virtual reality game, create 25 AI characters, give them personalities and histories, equip them with memory, and throw in some ChatGPT—and what do you get?

A pretty impressive representation of a functioning society with compelling, believable human interactions.

That’s the conclusion of six computer scientists from Stanford University and Google Research who designed a Sims-like environment to observe the daily routines of inhabitants of an AI-generated virtual town.