XR Initiative Spring Summit at UCLA
The XR Initiative Spring Summit 2024 at UCLA focused on Extended Reality (XR) technologies, AI integration, and practical applications in diverse fields. Experts discussed how emerging technologies are being used today, and the ethics and accessibility of XR and AI.
Keynote on "Embracing the Glitch" w/ Amanda Licastro
Chris Milk's now-infamous TED Talk had a compelling claim about VR being the "ultimate empathy machine", but Amanda Licastro delves into how this statement could be uncomfortable and problematic, as empathetic VR experiences can run into issues of toxic embodiment and tragedy tourism.
Jasmine Clark further expands on this unique problem with her quote:
"As a general point, avoid teaching "empathy" with marginalized groups, via immersion and embodiment, as the end goal. No technology can fully replicate the lived realities of others, which are composed of a lifetime's worth of physical, emotional, mental, and social experiences. Instead of focusing on empathy as an external process ("you need to understand others"), consider ways in which learners can develop greater self-awareness ("you need to understand the limits of your knowledge to better listen to and collaborate with others"). In other words, consider ways to have learners deconstruct and interrogate how they exist in the world."
We should always keep ethics in mind when designing experiences for VR. In this current moment, VR is especially powerful because strapping a headset on means just one point of focus in a multi-tasking attention economy. This level of immersion means there's little to no outside distractions, so there's a responsibility to ethically utilize this undivided attention.
When it comes to embracing the glitch, even when the technology isn't working the way we'd expect, it can be a generative opportunity.
For example, the project "An Archive of Queer Care: Virtual Reality, Spacial Design, Immersive Archive Creation" by Joseph Amodei used Polycam, but instead of cleaning it up in post production, it embraced all of its melty, imperfect 3D scans.
XR for Poetics & Play: A Pedagogical Inventory w/ Danny Snelson
Take into consideration Genie , a 3d generative foundation model (aka text to 3D).
While Genie is still at its beginning stages and the creations can come out a bit wonky, imagine that in the near future, we'd have the incredible ability to generate text to VR, or even text to video game.
As VR becomes more commonplace, there are several benchmarks for daily use such as fitness with an app like Supernatural, or socializing in VR with apps like Rec Room or Horizon Worlds.
Collaborative XR Design Lab w/ Yara Feghali
Check out Folly Feast Lab - a creative project with immersive and interactive world building, focused around identity, sustainability, and designing aesthetically engaging worlds in VR.
AR is a far more accessible medium at the moment, as phones are a common point of access.
VR is far less accessible, since it involves convincing someone to get into an expensive headset, and a lot of 3D content currently has this hardware access barrier.
Check out Yara's informative breakdown on the different levels of Interaction and Immersion for experiences:
Emergent Play: Innovations in XR Creation & Experience w/ Shawn Grover
Shawn Grover's keynote dove into how AI can be used in different stages of the production process.
When it comes to the Discovery and Research phase, we can speed up this time-intensive process with AI-enhanced research. "If we're working with a client and we know nothing about the industry or the space, we're able to do much faster levels of research and understanding key players and case studies. This is relatively basic, I hope everyone is kind of using ChatGPT in this way already. I think it's really important for this kind of adoption, because it can bridge the gap that much sooner."
Other AI uses could be tools such as meeting transcription, AI summaries, and feeding those summaries to then show overarching trends. Grover emphasizes that while AI enhanced methods are additional tools in our toolkit, he's not saying the traditional methods should go away.
When it comes time to Ideate and Prototype, text-to-image tools can accomplish a high level of visualization even if you're not an Artist by trade. "Storyboarding is being completely transformed," says Grover.
"When it comes to AI Enhanced brainstorming, ChatGPT is kind of incredible. Studies have already been done that show how ChatGPT was outperforming students in an innovation class. Creating more ideas, faster and cheaper, and better ideas. The vast majority of the best ideas were actually coming from ChatGPT."
That article can be read below.
AI came up with the name and character names of Drip and Drop for this AR mini game, and helped to troubleshoot and come up with a solution for AR drift.
I can't help but wonder: should this usage of AI be disclosed, and if so, how would developers best go about doing this?
One of the great questions after the panel was: "When you're using AI for prototyping, if it's generating concept art, how do you worry about copyright and giving attribution to the artists whose work it's taking and generating from?"
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Grover's response was: "Concept art is just that, and ultimately we're not using it in final end product, more as a visualization tool. There's a few different ways of approaching it- there are some companies that are training their own visuals and data, so kind of working within their own environment. It's a legal gray space, but I think it's important to attribute the artists if you're using their work. The problem right now of course is with tools like Midjourney, you don't know which artists are being leveraged. That's something that's going to get figured out in the courts to some degree. We use it not for production purposes, just for concepting internally and potentially putting it in front of the client to help guide the direction."
The ethical use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a major topic of debate right now. What do you think? Do you think using AI at any part of the production process is unethical, because at the moment we have a legal gray area that does not credit the artists or authors whose work is being utilized? Should companies hold off on using these technologies until we have a better understanding of the legalities, or should they embrace this interesting time when things are a bit of a free-for-all when it comes to AI?
Content and Privacy Challenges in the Metaverse w/ Michael Karanicolas
"When you're working in XR, you're really thinking about embodiment and putting people into virtual spaces that don't exist. So it's really important to understand in general how the mind-body connection works in that process." - Shawn Grover
Even though it's a simulation, going through something in VR has a similar psychological impact as if it happened in reality, such as groping or sexual harassment. This once again brings up the important question about ethics in the immersive space. With a captured audience, the persuasive nature of the content could have the potential to be dangerous. One example Karanicolas gives is what if you were to see a lifelike simulation of a presidential candidate brutally attacking a family member? Would this traumatic experience convince you vote for their opposition?
Michael compares the rapid rise of immersive content to the rise of social media platforms circa the 2010s. When it comes to social XR worlds are and what we want them to be, how can we facilitate ground-up regulation to avoid the harms that social media brought? We never had these discussions and conversations back then, so we should be fireproofing the VR experience instead of putting out fires as we see with social media platforms today.
Wellness in VR
Another important topic of the Summit was the healthcare uses of XR. Along with a demo of TRIPP VR using the cutting edge Pico 4 headset, many of the speakers touched on the topic of the therapeutic applications to virtual reality.
One example is instead of using the mirror box, a VR experience can help to reduce phantom limb pain. Trial to Wellness VR meditations helped students pre-finals season. With Pico's eye-tracking capabilities, someone with IVs in both arms can look, select, and play VR just using their eyes.
AI NPCs
Many of the VR demos included a voice-to-text component and AI responses. I tried out a training simulation where you are the therapist who talks to a patient about burnout at work. I was surprised that the AI patient was actually quite reluctant at first and would rather change the subject, and required warming up to open up about the problem, just like a real person! My speech was instantly turned into text which was then analyzed by the AI. It responded quickly, simulating the speed of a real conversation, which was pretty incredible to experience.
Shawn Grover talked about the future of where AI NPCs are headed. For now it can be somewhat limited, for example the memory won't retain much. Eventually, we'll have AI NPCs who can understand the environment they're in, what you're giving or showing them, have their own autonomous behavior, and can retain memories of all of your past interactions - think Westworld.
The use cases for these kind of interactive NPCs are endless: entertainment, gaming, training, education, healthcare, and more. You can already see a fun use of this in the game Suck Up , in which you play as a vampire who must convince AI NPCs to let you into their homes (so you can suck their blood! ????)
Suggested Readings
A Rape in Cyberspace by Julian Dibbell
"How virtual reality can create the ultimate empathy machine" , TED Talk by Chris Milk
The Nether by Jennifer Haley
Feeling good about feeling bad: virtuous virtual reality and the automation of racial empathy by Lisa Nakamura
Creating an Equally Effective Alternative Action Plan for Immersive Technologies and Recommendations for Accessible Pedagogy with Immersive Technology by Jasmine L. Clark
Suggested No Code or Low Code Prototyping Applications
This article was written without the use of AI.