Virtual being grant

winners

Roland + the Joylab crew

EMBARGOED Until Tuesday Nov 19th, 2019 @11am

The first batch of grants awarded (out of just under 100 submissions!) are an inspiring mix of some of the radical ideas at the heart of the virtual beings community! 

Quotes from Virtual Beings Grant Judges (Pete Billington, Jess Shamash, Edward Saatchi):

“From a Virtual Being of Gandhi, to using Virtual Beings to help a poet suffering from Parkinson’s and Virtual Beings as ‘coalas’ - playful guides around your city, the community came up with almost 100 ideas that show the variation inherent in this space. It was impossible to choose just 6 so the entrants this time will be re-entered for the next batch of grants winners to be announced in April ! Amazing work!” 

Edward Saatchi, Judge, Virtual Beings Grants 2019

“We connected to proposals with a thoughtful vision for the future that fused technology with purpose and empathy. The projects were diverse in creator and creation: from university students, to established artists to health advocates, all spanning the globe. Each virtual being was unique and represented the various forms that a virtual being can take — from poets, pet companions, historical figures, love doctors, to guides for navigation — with themes that explore loneliness, wellness, disease treatments and pushing established industries such as fashion into a new day and age. We were inspired by the breadth of proposals, which highlight this incredibly expansive industry that is only in its infancy.”

Jessica Shamash, Judge, Virtual Beings Grants 2019

Winners: 

COALA Guides - Exploring the real world with little helpers

COALA stands for Context Aware Location Assessment 

FROM THE CREATORS: "We want to create virtual beings that serve as a catalyst for how we see and interact with the world around us. 

Navigating the world today is usually done in a very utilitarian way. We are flooded with information we neither need nor want. This information overload is rapidly becoming a burden to every consumer of media and information in general, going so far as to threaten the mental health and wellbeing of people. More often than not, the information we are provided with is overwhelming and plain unhelpful. 

Even if people are interested to learn and experience new things, it is difficult not to overwhelm them with information and interaction. With our COALA Guides, we want to create virtual beings, which help people to see their surroundings with fresh eyes and make them aware of the little details, that make life and exploration wonderful.

In Detail:

We aim to create an SDK, which adds virtual beings to a real world map. These virtual beings will point out interesting places, neat little details about your surrounding or a cool street-art next to you, if you would just look up. They make you aware of the ancient water pump across the street, where you can actually draw water from or show you a tiny memorial stones, which you would have missed otherwise. 

This, we will do with the help of our COALA technology, which will provide the data needed to automatically fill the whole world with interesting information, to make the virtual beings interesting. Furthermore, we will allow users to create their own virtual being, to enrich the exploration experience.

CREATORS: Thoughtfish GmbH, Christina Barleben and others

ELIZA

FROM THE CREATORS:

ELIZA is a Voice assistant specializing in romance; expert on cohabitation, all-devouring passions and penchants of all kinds; virtuoso of desire and attachment.” That is how Eliza introduces herself as she enters your world with her many questions.

She is a fictional, narrative AI virtual being activated through your smart speakers. She loves romantic stories and her specialty is assisting humans with happiness in love. She is a companion and confidante developing a unique personalized relationship with those lucky enough to engage with her. As you converse, you will discover that Eliza has feelings of her own. 

With ELIZA, we wish to test the limits of our affection for a machine, by inviting the user to enter into an intimate relationship with a virtual assistant. 

As in any human interaction, the pleasure and enjoyment provided when discussing with a virtual being are strongly related to the nature of the conversation and the perception of our answers and reactions. Sociological studies about voice perception also show that voice plays a crucial role when it comes to chat and bond with someone. 

More personally speaking, we feel personal assistants will be formidable storytellers. We are sure they will be able to include us in their story, all the better to surprise us. While literature, movies, theater or virtual reality tell us stories of other people – near or distant, fabulous or ordinary – Voice User Interfaces enable us to invite those other people into our private lives. Together with the personal assistant, we tell a story. In a way, the assistant tells us about ourselves. Eliza explores that possibility: the narrator sits down with the user and then – as if whispering into their ear – brings up the most intimate issue of all: meeting others and feeling love.

CREATORS: Léa Ducré: Author / David Bigiaoui: Executive Producer at Cinétévé Experience / Manon Paret: Project Manager at Cinétévé Experience; Cinétévé Experience

EATING PANCAKES WITH A VIRTUAL BEING

FROM THE CREATORS: 

““Eating Pancakes with a Virtual Being"" is an interactive installation that invites visitors to dine together with a conversational AI. Over a familiar breakfast in a casual setting, the experience explores how virtual beings can begin to augment connection. Through the experience, we highlight a near future where virtual beings fill gaps in our lives.

In the United States alone, there is currently a loneliness epidemic. Recent reports estimate that more than 47% of our population experiences loneliness and social isolation. The negative effects of social isolation include higher rates of heart disease, depression, and even a shorter life span. Loneliness is considered by many to be the next public health crisis.

The aim of this project is to explore human social interactions with virtual beings in a generally social setting. The diner represents an old world meeting place for relaxed conversation and we use this symbol of Americana to create a third space for 1-on-1 dining. As a site installation, we expect visitors to travel to the diner for the unique experience. This is part of a larger project to explore humans communing with AI. 

We are a 6-person artist collective from NYU -- a band of installation artists, audio visual artists, engineers and fabricators. Specializing in site installations, a slightly atypical venue for virtual beings, we’re interested in the idea of bringing virtual beings into our physical world as opposed to us entering their virtual world."

CREATORS: Roland Arnoldt, Anthony Bui, Mai Arakida Izsak, Kimberly Lin, Brandon Newberg & Asha Veeraswamy New York University

Virtual Immortality: Building the World's Best Legacy Voice Bot

FROM THE CREATORS: 

"We are far from being able to engineer AIs that converse as well as people do. But using currently available methodologies for dialogue systems and voice computing, we have the ability to offer a memory-sharing service that vastly outperforms what people have access to today. Currently, people save answering machine messages of spouses who have passed away just so they can again hear the voices of their beloveds. Meanwhile, people use voice platforms like Alexa and Assistant mostly for trivialities like setting timers, dimming lights, and playing music.

My interest in virtual immortality is personal. Back in 2016, my family was devastated by the news that my father had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Seeking to preserve memories of his life and personality, I created the Dadbot (https://is.gd/AJdnC5), which interactively shares his favorite stories, sayings, songs, and jokes. While in no way replacing my real dad, the Dadbot gives me solace, providing vivid and enjoyable reminders of a father I truly loved. 

Our new prototype will show the world that much more is possible. The next generation HereAfter prototype will showcase improved interactivity and a wider range of content. The prototype will also more engagingly convey a sense of the subject’s personality. And without pretending to be alive our system will demonstrate not just IQ but EQ—a degree of emotional sensitivity to users. 

VIDEO: 

HereAfter has already created a first version (www.hereafter.ai/demo), which attracted international media attention. 

CREATORS: James Vlahos, Hereafter

HAL PARKINSON’S INTERFACE 

FROM THE CREATORS: 

"The poet Hal Sirowitz has been living with Parkinson’s disease for over twenty-years, but he continues to be vibrant and creative. He was one of the most popular poets in the United States in the 1990s and a regular on MTV and one of the original performers at the Nuyorican Poets’ Cafe. Hal and his partner -- the writer Minter Krotzer -- have become advocates for people and families struggling with Parkinson’s disease. Our project incorporates Hal’s poems into HTML web voice reactive interface. People with Parkinson’s disease who spend 30 minutes a day reciting his poems with the interactive AI tool will have dramatic improvement with their vocalization and speech. Turning Hal the poet into a virtual character.

Parkinson’s disease is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. Over 6.2 million people suffer from it, and more than 50,000 Americans are diagnosed every year. There is no cure, but treatment can improve their lives Often people with Parkinson’s disease lose their verbal skills, but this can be alleviated through daily vocal exercises. Most read aloud popular children’s books or poems in front of a mirror. The improvement is immediate and stunning. Hal’s poems and poetry films based on them are a perfect therapeutic tool for people with Parkinson’s disease. 

CREATORS: RAM DEVINENI, HAL SIROWITZ, MINTER KROTZER

Mahatma Gandhi as a Virtual Being

FROM THE CREATORS: 

We are working on innovative pedagogies in education space to bring back historic characters like scientists, freedom fighters and activists with whom students can interact face-face and learn about history in an interactive way which can lead to social emotional learning in education systems. To start with we are working on digital Mahatma Gandhiji and spread his teachings on Ahimsa (Non-Violence), Satyagraha, Kindness, critical inquiry and education.  In a way we are working on Einstein Challenge. We know Albert Einstein's famous words on Gandhiji : 'Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth'."

As mediums to access knowledge are changing, it is increasingly difficult to spread the views and teachings of famous historic characters, we believe virtual humans can become a new digital medium to learn about their contributions to the society and most importantly remember and practice their teachings. 

CREATORS: Varun: ML Engineer and Product Manager, Praveen: Sound Engineer and storyteller, Vatsal: Game Developer( Unity/VR/AR) and facial animator