[FRIAM] exploiting the uncanny valley...

[Prof David West]

Coors Brewery was giving away a Zoom Avatar a few months back. Posted a link on the list then. Don't know if still available. Don't know if it included "product placement."

davew


On Thu, Jan 21, 2021, at 5:12 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> My peeve of late is with people that talk about latent low dimensional 
> representations as if it were a given that they exist and are generally 
> valid to use.  Of course, these animations hold most variables constant 
> about their subjects and change some coarse or local geometry.   They 
> are not generative models trained on observed behavior.   I dream of an 
> avatar that can reproduce me on Zoom calls for a few days so I can go 
> to the park and play with my dog.   I'd like to have training sets like 
> "in a good mood and feeling generous" which I could replay again and 
> again and again coupled to whatever topic.  Eliza like stuff that just 
> responds to the speaker with remarks like "What a good idea?  Can you 
> tell me more?"   
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ???
> Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2021 3:10 PM
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] exploiting the uncanny valley...
> 
> Not about UV, but more along the lines of Kimmel's video:
> 
> https://counter.social/system/media_attachments/files/000/726/335/original/b164ce96f368c5f8.mp4?1611268526
> 
> On 1/21/21 10:13 AM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:
> > I can't help but wonder if this is related to sentiments like Justine's rejection of "natural" interfaces and conceptions of [ab|mis]use? My first bad reaction to machine/software was when I tried to play one of the Dark Souls games <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Souls> for the first time. There are some instructions in the form of a tutorial area, but nothing like the way games used to be ... like with a whole instruction manual on how to play. Maybe if the interface is *natural enough*, then it's likable. But if it's just a tad less than natural, then it makes you nauseous ... like how VR affects some people ... or like a psychopath who hasn't quite learned how to mimic normies' emotional affect.
> > 
> > On 1/21/21 9:23 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
> >> I wonder how much lead time went into making this series of fakes wandering the uncanny valley between shallow and deep fake?
> >>
> >>     Na Na Na Na, Goodbye - Kimmel 
> >> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZqu8ojifhU>
> >>
> >> This class of "magic" will be for the current children growing up 
> >> what the elders here experienced with the classic production of Wizard of Oz when it shifted abruptly from BW to Technicolor as Dorothy emerged from her Tornado-House in Oz.   Or perhaps the well executed insertion of Forrest Gump into various bits of historical footage from the 60's (auspiciously his speech at the DC Mall during the Vietnam Protests).  Or perhaps the Toy Story experience as a feature 3D animated movie.   Or maybe the integration of live and 2D/3D animation in Roger Rabbit or Howard the Duck <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mz3oytpugs>.
> >>
> >> All *exploiting* the uncanny valley whilst exploring it.
> > 
> > 
> 
> --
> ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ
> 
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