Lifeboat Foundation

As if it weren’t enough to have AI tanning humanity’s hide (figuratively for now) at every board game in existence, Google AI has got one working to destroy us all at Ping-Pong as well. For now they emphasize it is “cooperative,” but at the rate these things improve, it will be taking on pros in no time.

The project, called i-Sim2Real, isn’t just about Ping-Pong but rather about building a robotic system that can work with and around fast-paced and relatively unpredictable human behavior. Ping-Pong, AKA table tennis, has the advantage of being pretty tightly constrained (as opposed to playing basketball or cricket) and a balance of complexity and simplicity.

Continue reading “Watch Google’s Ping-Pong robot pull off a 340-hit rally” »

Sleek, light, high-performance, and not easy on the pocket like any other Apple device.

Earlier this week, Meta rolled out its Quest Pro Virtual Reality (VR) headset, priced at $1,499. Many questioned the need for a high-end VR headset when the company’s Quest 2 headset appears to be doing rather well. However, as Mark Zuckerberg mentioned in his conversation with The Verge.

The official launch of Apple’s mixed reality headset was expected to happen in 2022. In the recent past, we have had Apple products being announced much earlier than their actual availability, so a 2022 launch could still be possible. To prepare you for such an event, here’s what you need to know about the Apple headset.

Continue reading “Apple’s mixed-reality headset: Here’s what you need to know” »

A while ago I spotted someone working on real time AI image generation in VR and I had to bring it to your attention because frankly, I cannot express how majestic it is to watch AI-modulated AR shifting the world before us into glorious, emergent dreamscapes.

Applying AI to augmented or virtual reality isn’t a novel concept, but there have been certain limitations in applying it—computing power being one of the major barriers to its practical usage. Stable Diffusion image generation software, however, is a boiled-down algorithm for use on consumer-level hardware and has been released on a Creative ML OpenRAIL-M licence. That means not only can developers use the tech to create and launch programs without renting huge amounts of server silicon, but they’re also free to profit from their creations.

In an interview published Tuesday with The Verge, Zuckerberg said VR, the technology he bet his entire $340 billion company on a year ago, is entering “the trough of disillusionment.” That’s a term folks in the tech industry like to use when excitement around a new technology drastically wanes.

His comments effectively place expectations for the success of the new Meta Quest Pro, which goes on sale Oct. 25, at next to zero. At the same time, Zuckerberg reiterated his belief that the metaverse will be the next iteration of computing after the smartphone — it’s just going to take a long time. Specifically, he told The Verge “it’s not going to be until later this decade” when metaverse gadgets like the Quest Pro will be “fully mature.”

But Meta isn’t selling headsets later this decade. It’s selling them now, and expecting technologists and software developers to invent compelling reasons to buy one.

In the past few years, a growing number of computer scientists have been exploring the idea of “metaverse,” an internet-based space where people would be able to virtually perform various everyday activities. The general idea is that, using virtual reality (VR) headsets or other technologies, people might be able to attend work meetings, meet friends, shop, attend events, or visit places, all within a 3D virtual environment.

While the metaverse has recently been the topic of much debate, accessing its 3D “virtual environments” often requires the use of expensive gear and devices, which can only be purchased by a relatively small amount of people. This unavoidably limits who might be able to access this virtual space.

Researchers at Beijing Institute of Technology and JD Explore Academy have recently created WOC, a 3D online chatroom that could be accessible to a broader range of people worldwide. To gain access to this chatroom, which was introduced in a paper pre-published on arXiv, users merely need a simple computer webcam or smartphone camera.

In this episode we explore a User Interface Theory of reality. Since the invention of the computer virtual reality theories have been gaining in popularity, often to explain some difficulties around the hard problem of consciousness (See Episode #1 with Sue Blackmore to get a full analysis of the problem of how subjective experiences might emerge out of our brain neurology); but also to explain other non-local anomalies coming out of physics and psychology, like ‘quantum entanglement’ or ‘out of body experiences’. Do check the devoted episodes #4 and #28 respectively on those two phenomena for a full breakdown.
As you will hear today the vast majority of cognitive scientists believe consciousness is an emergent phenomena from matter, and that virtual reality theories are science fiction or ‘Woowoo’ and new age. One of this podcasts jobs is to look at some of these Woowoo claims and separate the wheat from the chaff, so the open minded among us can find the threshold beyond which evidence based thinking, no matter how contrary to the consensus can be considered and separated from wishful thinking.
So you can imagine my joy when a hugely respected cognitive scientist and User Interface theorist, who can cut through the polemic and orthodoxy with calm, respectful, evidence based argumentation, agreed to come on the show, the one and only Donald D Hoffman.

Hoffman is a full professor of cognitive science at the University of California, Irvine, where he studies consciousness, visual perception and evolutionary psychology using mathematical models and psychophysical experiments. His research subjects include facial attractiveness, the recognition of shape, the perception of motion and colour, the evolution of perception, and the mind-body problem. So he is perfectly placed to comment on how we interpret reality.

Continue reading “#29 Don Hoffman PHD — USER INTERFACE THEORY EXPLAINED” »

How likely is it that we live in a simulation? Are virtual worlds real?

In this first episode of the 2nd Series we delve into the fascinating topic of virtual reality simulations and the extraordinary possibility that our universe is itself a simulation. For thousands of years some mystical traditions have maintained that the physical world and our separated ‘selves’ are an illusion, and now, only with the development of our own computer simulations and virtual worlds have scientists and philosophers begun to assess the statistical probabilities that our shared reality could in fact be some kind of representation rather than a physical place.
As we become more open to these possibilities, other difficult questions start to come into focus. How can we create a common language to talk about matter and energy, that bridges the simulated and simulating worlds. Who could have created such a simulation? Could it be an artificial intelligence rather than a biological or conscious being? Do we have ethical obligations to the virtual beings we interact with in our virtual worlds and to what extent are those beings and worlds ‘real’? The list is long and mind bending.

Continue reading “#16 David Chalmers PHD — THE SIMULATION HYPOTHESIS AND VIRTUAL WORLDS” »

This metaverse meme video is about wojak who grows old in a metaverse. From the moment he is still a child and has his first school day, he already lives through his vr glasses. His school is in the metaverse, as well as his friends. Years later, he starts doubting about how “normal” living meta actually is. Didn’t people maybe have a better life back when there was no metaverse? When you did stuff offline? Who knows…

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Continue reading “Growing up in a Metaverse” »

“I always think it’s important that people understand what something is,” Cook told Dutch publication Bright (via Google Translate). “And I’m really not sure the average person can tell you what the metaverse is.” In other words, despite persistent reports of Apple’s interest in building all manner of AR and VR hardware, Cook isn’t ready to claim that the company is working towards any so-called “metaverse.”

Mark Zuckerberg has a different view. Earlier this year, the Meta CEO told his employees that the company is in a “very deep, philosophical competition” with Apple to build the metaverse. “This is a competition of philosophies and ideas, where they believe that by doing everything themselves and tightly integrating that they build a better consumer experience,” Zuckerberg said, contrasting what he says is Apple’s closed approach with Meta’s more interoperable development.