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e456 — Not a Bot

By Michael Martine | March 4, 2024 - 06:26 |March 3, 2024 Podcast

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cute wooden "robot" with a heart drawn on the torso — Photo by Ochir-Erdene Oyunmedeg on Unsplash

Published 4 March 2024

Andy, Michael and Michael are back in (virtual) studio together to talk tech. They check in on the latest spatial computing experiences with Michael R, discuss new AI announcements & trends and wrap up with several games.

The co-hosts start off the show with a roundup of the recent news articles on the Apple Vision Pro along with Michael R’s personal experiences. Michael R shares the benefits he’s seen from how the spatial computer reduces distractions and allows him to focus on his work. The number of countries where people may buy the computer is expected to expand very soon.

Switching to AI, the first item up for conversation is the Not by AI team, and the badges they offer to creators who adhere to 90%+ human created content. This sparks a lively conversation about how one may measure the 90%. The badges are followed up quickly with a story about the introduction of Google’s Genie – which creates virtual worlds from a picture. Quite an amazing two weeks, given the OpenAI announcement of Sora, discussed in e455. The statement of “You won’t lose your job to AI, but to a human using AI” gets a refinement in Sangeet Paul Choudary’s post looking at skill disintermediation of AI in his article.

While the team was running out of time on the episode, they do take a moment to discuss the Video Game History Foundation and the value of game experience preservation before closing out this episode.

What image would you want to prompt Google’s Genie with? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and let us know!

Selected Article Links

AR / VR / Spatial

Wall Street Journal article: One Month With Apple Vision Pro: In the Air, on a Train and…in a Drawer

Quartz article: A lot of Apple Vision Pro returns are because customers just don’t get it, analyst says

The Verge article: Honda’s ‘extended reality’ is a mash-up of VR and motorized wheelchairs

3D printed my very first D20 for the charity stream tonight on https://twitch.tv/ctrlaltquin [I'll keep my mic and camera open on https://twitch.tv/ChrisPirillo as well]
#3dprinting #rpg #ttrpg #gaming

— Chris Pirillo (@ChrisPirillo) 2024-02-28T21:33:13.809Z

Gamespot article: Minecraft’s Universal Studios DLC Provides Some Shockingly Good Theme Park Recreations

Space

I just looked up Voyager 1's current position for a talk and saw something wild: https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/
The distance between Earth and Voyager 1 is actually *decreasing* right now (even though the distance between Voyager 1 and the Sun is increasing). A website bug?
Nope! Earth moves really fast around the Sun. Right now we're moving faster toward Voyager 1 than it's flying away from us
Earth orbits at 30 km/s around the Sun, Voyager is going "only" 17 km/s. I love orbital dynamics!

— Prof. Sam Lawler (@sundogplanets) 2024-02-28T20:33:16.733Z

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e455 — Star Trek vs. Douglas Adams

By Michael Martine | February 26, 2024 - 06:33 |February 25, 2024 Podcast

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the number 42 attached to a wall. Photo by Mark König on Unsplash — Photo by Mark König on Unsplash

Published 26 February 2024

Michael and Michael are back in studio, inspired by an article that connects science fiction with scientific innovation leading to science fact. The post from the Interconnected blog posits that we are in the midst of a vibe shift, and that the technology is shifting from Star Trek to that from the imagination of Douglas Adams. The Games at Work team is no stranger to the works of Douglas Adams – check out the discussion with Ross Smith on e60: Bubbly Bubblers in Gamified Buildings from Sept 2013, and e105 from Feb 2015 was titled “Glad to be of Service”, or the Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses project discussed on e187: Bionic Eye from Dec 2017 to give just a couple examples.

Shifting to AI, Michael and Michael discuss the challenges many LLMs have with basic math based on a recent WSJ article, and how combining the LLM with capabilities such as WolframAlpha’s can help fix this. The pair also talk through how the idea of creating entire virtual worlds from a few lines of text is not entirely new, though the recent advances from Sora take things to an entirely new level.

Then, the co-hosts talk through how the idea of how games themselves can inspire sustainability. Michael M shares that he’ll be volunteering at the NCSSM-sponsored SMathHacks hackathon next weekend in Durham and Morganton, North Carolina, which has several sustainability inspired tracks this year.

Last, Michael and Michael focus on XR and spatial computing, starting with a repository of 3D objects on Beautifulthings. Then Michael R shares his experiences from The [Archive], which provides 3D experiences of a variety of Star Trek bridges. Check out the video below for an example. The team wrap things up for this episode with Mono, a magnifying glass that offers a new take on a mixed reality experience.

What Douglas Adams inspired technology would you most or least expect to experience? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and let us know!

Selected Article Links

Holodecks and Electric Monks

Interconnected Blog: Tech has graduated from the Star Trek era to the Douglas Adams age

Technovelgy List: Douglas Adams: Science Fiction Technology and Ideas

AI

Wall Street Journal article: We Tested an AI Tutor for Kids. It Struggled With Basic Math.

WolframAlpha

The Verge article: Google pauses Gemini’s ability to generate AI images of people after diversity errors

PC-Tablet article: OpenAI’s New AI Transforms Text into Dynamic Metaverse Worlds

Games at Work e428: Is you is, or is you AIn’t my AI?

Games

Atmos article: From Pixels to Politics: How Video Games Can Inspire a Green New World

NCSSM’s SMathHacks Hackathon 2024

Spore

Kingmakers on Steam

The Verge article: Sony’s PlayStation Portal hacked to run emulated PSP games

XR

beautifulthings.xyz

App Store: The [Archive]

App Store: Blackbox for Vision

Yanko Design post: Mixed Reality Magnifying Glass for Kids Shows the World in a Different Light

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e454 — I don’t remember a thing!

By Michael Martine | February 19, 2024 - 06:13 |February 18, 2024 Podcast

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A chess pawn on a mirror, with a king in the mirror’s reflection — Photo by Ravi Kumar on Unsplash

Published 19 February 2024

Michael, Michael and Andy are back in studio with an AI and robot powered episode. The co-hosts start things off with the world’s “most responsible” AI chatbot, Goody-2. According to the website, this chatbot is so safely constructed and curated that it will not answer anything that may remotely be conceived as problematic or controversial. Moving along to another fit for purpose large language model (LLM), the team considers Chess-GPT. Andy shares a fun Spotify playlist centered on playing chess with Diana Ross.

The team discusses the just-announced OpenAI text-to-video capabilities of Sora. Michael R recalls his paper on creating movies directly from textual screenplays. Also on the same general theme, Apple Research have shared details on Keyframer, a generative AI tool that allows 2D objects to be animated.

Switching gears to robots, the team continues with the AI theme and highlights an article by the Hustle with several robots aimed at helping children. The very cute sounding (and looking) Snorble, Grok rocket and Doll take center stage. These are followed up by the humanoid robot from MagicLab piercing a marshmallow and roasting it in a video.

The co-hosts wrap up this episode with an all-inclusive article from the Verge calling out that the metaverse is not dead yet.

What ideas do you have for the confluence of AI + robots + metaverse? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and let us know!

Selected Article Links

AI

Wired article: Meet the Pranksters Behind Goody-2, the World’s ‘Most Responsible’ AI Chatbot

GOODY-2

Adam Karvonen post: Chess-GPT’s Internal World Model

Spotify Playlist: playing chess with Diana Ross

Wikipedia article: Elo rating system

Games at Work e301 – Grinch Bots

The Verge article: Apple’s latest prototype AI tool can animate images using text descriptions

Ars Technica article: OpenAI collapses media reality with Sora, a photorealistic AI video generator

OpenAI’s Sora

Domo Arigato

the Hustle article: Bots for tots: AI-powered children’s toys are talking back

Snorble

Grok toy

Doly

Interesting Engineering article: MagicLab’s humanoid can toast marshmallows, fold clothes and dance

metaverse

VentureBeat article: The metaverse is back. But let’s not call it the metaverse

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e453 — Vision Pro a Pro-Pro

By Michael Martine | February 12, 2024 - 06:24 |February 11, 2024 Podcast

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Apple Vision Pro on a stand - Photo by Mylo Kaye on Unsplash — Photo by Mylo Kaye on Unsplash

Published 12 February 2024

Michael, Michael and Andy are back in studio to talk tech. Immersive engagement, user experience, advertising and strategic partnerships form the backbone of this episode.

Starting off, as one would expect, the team starts things off with Michael R’s experiences with the Vision Pro from the past week. Among the stories Michael shares, he talks about his productive work use cases. Listeners will be relived to know he did not wear the Vision Pro while driving!

Next up, the team considers the Brilliant Labs Frame, from the same company that produced the Monocle, discussed in episode 436. Then, discussion turns to search innovations, which brings up an interesting story from London, where tube stations had been temporarily renamed as part of an advertising campaign for Google’s circle to search feature. Speaking of search, Lycos still exists, while Alta Vista had been acquired by Yahoo. Open source Stract gets a mention for listeners to try out.

Then, some exciting news with several North Carolina connections. Disney and Epic Games announce a partnership to “expand the reach of beloved Disney stories and experiences” according to the press release. This is on the heels of the recent news of Disney’s second Storyliving neighborhood: Astoria in Chatham County, North Carolina, which will take advantage of Disney’s Imagineering placemaking. But wait, there’s more from Disney… and Fox and Warner Brothers – a new sports streaming service.

Closing out this episode is a Kickstarter that streams poetry – the Poem/1 AI rhyming clock.

What do you think about the confluence of metaverse and physical placemaking? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and let us know!