Welcome, to all the newly minted AI experts! Everyone by now has heard of ChatGPT and other generative AIs. Personally, I got into XR about thirty years ago with a dream to tell stories, perhaps even new interactive 3D stories (think: Holodeck) with the vital help of AI. Along the way, I worked on the procedural 3D object system for Second Life and smart cartography for the original Google Earth. But I don’t actually call myself an AI expert.
More so, I’ve grappled with the ethical consequences of the AI shift (e.g., snark from 1993). It’s both exciting and a bit scary to see AI progress this rapidly. In this article, I’ll provide more context, deflate some of the hype, as usual, and add some bigger and lesser-known trends to the pot. I’ll leave you with a view of the future and a choice you’ll likely need to make.
The Past
When photography was first introduced in the 1800s, our only experience of recorded imagery came from original hand-crafted media. Reactions to photography ranged from excitement to indignity and even fear that these devices were stealing our souls. While that seems unlikely, we do observe that excessive media exposure can indeed lead to human suffering (e.g., loss of privacy, teen idols, and Instagram…). We live in a world where it’s considered okay to take and share photographs of anyone without asking. So we have lost a bit of our personal power, at the very least.