Merging Critiques

The increased power of AI algorithms and capacities of VR have both generated a fascination with their endless possibilities as well as fired several alarm bells at the possibility of these technologies falling into the 'wrong hands.' Generative algorithms can now create images, video and voice “recordings” totally from scratch. This novelty can be entertaining and useful, but can also be used as a scary substitute for truth and facts when skilfully mixed with plausible news. This session will host two of the most acclaimed journalists in the fields of VR and AI, bringing a much-needed critique about where the role of these technologies in contemporary life lies.

Kent Bye – The Ultimate Potential of XR & AI: Immersive Storytelling & Experiential Design

Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence are exponential technologies that have been co-evolving with each other towards a larger vision of the Metaverse that's inhabited by Artificial General Intelligent entities. This is a long journey, but the boundedness of immersive stories in virtual worlds creates a limited context so AI can feel a lot smarter than it currently is. Voices of VR and Voices of AI podcast host Kent Bye will be sharing highlights of this intersection from the major film festival circuit as well as the broader XR industry. He will distill some basic principles through the lens of an experiential design framework that maps out some tradeoffs including authored narratives versus generative agency. What's it mean to share authorship with both the audience as well as trained neural networks? How can the combination of these technologies provide a reflection of the human experience? And what's an interdisciplinary framework to help make sense what role architects can play in building these worlds for expressive intelligence?

Since May 2014, Kent Bye has conducted over 1500 Voices of VR podcast interviews featuring the pioneering artists, storytellers, and technologists driving the resurgence of virtual & augmented reality. He's a philosopher, oral historian, & experiential journalist helping to define the patterns of immersive storytelling, experiential design, ethical frameworks, & the ultimate potential of XR. He's also covered four academic artificial intelligence conferences for his nascent Voices of AI podcast. You can follow his work on Twitter @kentbye.

https://voicesofvr.com/

Nina Schick – Deepfakes and the Infocalpyse

Nina Schick, political broadcaster and author of Deepfakes, argues that in the Age of Information, we are facing an unprecedented crisis of misinformation. Our information ecosystem has become dangerous and corrupt. And now, AI is going to accelerate this trend further. With the rise of so-called, 'deepfakes,' AI-generated 'fake' or synthetic content (video, images, audio, and text), we are facing a future in which the very notion of reality becomes a wholly subjective concept. The implications are huge, not only for politics and geopolitics but for every business and private citizen. What do we do about this crisis of bad information?

Nina Schick is a political commentator, advisor and public speaker, specialising in how technology is reshaping politics in the 21st century. She is an expert on disinformation and on AI-generated faked media. Most recently, her work has seen her advising on the fallout generated from Russian election interference in the US (and around the world) since 2016. She has worked with and for leaders including Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former Secretary-General of NATO; US VP, Joe Biden; and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Image: 'Nina Schick, Deepfakes, 2020.'

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