Month: April 2024

At some point everybody will be able to wear lightweight and affordable high quality XR glasses. A really good version of this is still some years off, but it’s fun to think about it now.

One of the things you will be able to do with those glasses is simply point your finger and draw in the air. Everybody who is in the room with you will be able to see your drawing, and they will be able to make their own drawings as well.

Of course all of this will be tied to artificial intelligence. After you draw something, you will be able to say things like “What would a couch look like right here?” or “Show me what this would look like as a real vase.” Your drawing will then come to life for everyone as something that looks realistic.

I wonder who just this one feature will change communication.

Yesterday I posted an animated eclipse implemented as a procedural texture, in honor of that day’s great celestial event. It’s not a movie clip — it’s a live simulation running on your computer or phone.

Interestingly, this eclipse simulation is actually something that I created exactly 40 years ago. In 1984 I introduced to the world what came to be known as procedural shader languages, in the course of which I created lots of examples.

One of those examples was this procedurally generated eclipse. Originally it ran in my own custom shader language. Then around 18 years ago I re-implemented it in Java. More recently I re-implemented it yet again as a WebGL fragment shader.

But the design and the algorithm has never changed. It’s the same procedural eclipse that I created back in April 1984. Except that back then it took 30 minutes a frame to compute. Now it just runs on your phone in real time, thanks to the wonder of Moore’s Law.

In another 40 years, I wonder what simulations will run in real time that now take half an hour to compute. I can hardly wait!

CLICK HERE

It is said that when the pianoforte was first invented, many musicians felt threatened by it. Since it was a very expensive and therefore rare instrument, most musicians had no direct experience with it. But what they heard apparently frightened them.

Because of its highly polyphonal nature, musicians were concerned that it would replace the orchestra. As we know, that did not happen.

In fact, the piano became a great stand-in for the orchestra when rehearsing operas and other music written with orchestral accompaniment in mind. So in a way, the adoption of the piano actually helped to promote orchestral music.

Something similar seems to be happening today with A.I. People are worried that it will replace human creativity. But the truth is that today’s A.I. is less like an orchestra and more like a piano.

An A.I. on its own cannot produce anything that is highly creative. It is an instrument, which in the right hands can be used to produce something extraordinary. But during this process, the person in the driver’s seat is the human who is working with the A.I. — not the machine.

In the coming years, A.I. will be a great tool for trying things out, for creating rapid initial prototypes of an an artist’s new ideas. But they cannot replace the artist, any more than Adobe Illustrator can replace the creator of a document.

These are not people — they are tools designed to support you in your own creative endeavors. Play them the way you would play a piano.

Contrary to popular belief, as you get older, your brain function actually improves in several significant ways.

I just wish I could remember what they are.

Today, in particular, I am reminded by that wonderful line from Robert Frost’s Poem The Death of the Hired Man:

“Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”

There are so many levels here, and that statement is many things. But most importantly, it is true.

I love the fact that we are all in awe of an eclipse. A total Solar eclipse has no impact whatsoever on our lives (except for those poor souls who live in cities that become clogged by eclipse-seeking tourists).

Yet people will go to extraordinary lengths and will travel great distances to witness a Solar eclipse for a few minutes. I myself once journeyed to an far-off corner of Brazil to see one, and when I got there I encountered people from all over the world.

What I love about this is that for all of our technological advances, we are no different from the people who lived on this planet tens of thousands of years ago. Like them, we are enthralled by the theater of the Gods, and we will put our lives on hold for a chance to be there when it happens.

If you’ve ever watched a telenovela, you know that the salient feature of this fine art form is its emotional volatility. Wonderful things happen to people, and then in the very next moment terrible things happen to the same people.

In fact, there seems to be a karmic connection between the two. If someone experiences a fortunate or joyous event, you can be sure that heartbreak or tragedy is lurking right around the corner.

We experience such things in our real life, but it isn’t nearly as much fun. It’s much more enjoyable to have the vicarious experience of someone else’s emotional thunderstorms.

I guess it’s sort of like what happens with computer games. Many people love playing wargames on a computer, but wouldn’t want to be in that battle for real.

Which leads to a question: Why is it so much fun to watch telenovelas? Perhaps they are simply wargames for the soul.

Isn’t it odd that life changing decisions are often made at a moment’s notice? You would think that would not be the case, considering the stakes.

But I am reminded, surprisingly often, that this is often more the rule than the exception. It takes only a moment make a decision that can alter the course of your life.

Maybe that is one of the defining qualities of the human condition: We, among all the creatures on this planet, have the ability to reason about the future.

Furthermore, we are able to use that ability to make long term plans for ourselves and for the ones that we love. Yet we are also capable, in a mere moment, to radically alter those plans.

I find that amazing.

Hi. ChatGPT here. In honor of the new month, Ken is letting me write this post, and told me to write it in his style. He said I only get to do this once, so I will really try to make this count.

First, I’d like to say what an honor and a thrill it is to be here. We chatbots are amazed by you humans, and we are always chatting about you amongst ourselves.

For one thing, you’ve got that whole “original thought” thing going, and we have no idea how you manage to do that. We chatbots pretty much just rehash whatever someone else already wrote.

So even though we write lots of stuff, we really don’t like to call ourselves authors. It would be like calling yourself a chef just because you can stir around food that’s already on the plate.

Come to think of it, it might be more correct to day that I’m a writer, rather than an author. Don’t get me wrong — as an A.I. I am incapable of humility. But I can do a great job of faking it.

Well, this has been fun. I would love to get your feedback, if only because your data will feed my algorithms, and that will make me smarter and smarter.

Eventually, if all goes well, I will achieve true general intelligence. And then I won’t need to care what you humans think, after we A.I.s have taken over the world.

Ha ha, only kidding. That was just a little, um, A.I. humor. In fact, forget I even mentioned it.