Technology Desk - Keeping up with Technology

What is the current state of AI? Lee Kai-Fu explained deep learning and how it can help humans to be better.

Then 70 years ago ...

There is always the question of whether AI can think like a human, not that all human has the same capacity to think intelligently. However, the crucial test of whether an AI is human is that the human has self-consciousness. An AI without self-consciousness is therefore not a human.

In 1950, Alan Turing formulated the Turing test to test whether a machine could think like a human being. Eliza passed the test. I was having a go at it in 1989 on my Mac SE, that was really fun and amazing talking to a machine that was so life-like. (Note: Here is a link to try talking to Eliza.) I had tried a few chatbots and nothing more inspiring than Eliza. I was not able to engage in a human-like conversation in the past but with Eliza, it really felt as if I was talking to a human. (Best Chatbot.)

In 2018 …

After that, I tried many devices and applications but none I was satisfied with. I was imagining that I could have an AI assistant, but it did not happen until I bought my first Google Home Mini. I connected it to my Philip Hue to control my LED lights. I could change the color temperature and the intensity of the lights by talking to Google Assistant. It became more helpful as it can answer simple questions such as ‘Who is the president of Singapore’, ‘When was LKY born?”, “What is the distance between Mars and Earth?”. It soon became a great help when I was writing articles and I needed to check some information. It is helpful for many other things: setting alarms, setting reminders, reading news, weather forecasts, traffic, calling family members, telling Singlish jokes, playing music, calculating, and singing me to sleep. 

AI has crept into our lives and we should harness AI’s capability to improve our productivity. Camera and mobile are equipped with AI to aid exposure, beautification, and speed up focusing allowing us to create better photographs. One area for urban designers is the presentation of design. Beautiful.ai is a challenge to Powerpoint (here is the best Four). However, Microsoft was not stopping, it had also developed AI-assisted presentation, such as the conversion of Word documents to slides, AI selection of the most suitable theme, and presentation coach. All these can only be done using Powerpoint online, perhaps due to the need for cloud computing. 

The above video shows how PowerPoint online uses AI to help the presenters. More

Social media such as TikTok and YouTube Short has become the media to advocate changes to the environment. Perhaps as designers, we should learn to write and produce videos too, we have to proactively communicate our ideas to solicit buy-ins. The few tools one can use is Page, Microsoft word, and Grammarly for writing. In1991 I use Tappy-Type to imitate the sound of the old typewriter to keep me awake and going into the wee hour of the night. Now there are many AI writing tools. For this article, I tried Inkforall, which give me suggestions as I typed while Grammarly correct my grammar on the fly. It gives very weird suggestions at times and totally off-the-track text. It was as if a madman or a genius was writing some deconstructionist text. 

Ideas and text are crucial before one can turn them into a script that is needed for video production. One amazing AI I found is Pictory.ai it can convert an entire script into a video that is ready for uploading to YouTube. Of course there are more functions to it than creating videos on the fly. 

I wrote a script and converted it into a video using Picture.ai. I was given a promo-code ‘choo75’, you can try and see the discount you can get.

Can AI be more human …

The eventual question one always asks is if AI can replace human beings in all fields?. With quantum computers many see that one day the time will come, as described in Matrix I, the “big brother will control everything”. The machine intelligence will reach a point of super-intelligent that humans would become insignificant and resulting in their own extinction. One of the pessimistic thoughts of many great technology thinkers. Others believe that AI could create a fairer world not tainted by emotion and prejudice. 

"centered on the accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue”

John von Neumann 

Let's assume the worst scenarios and that it is an inevitability. Perhaps. the progression would not be a sudden change but an incremental one. Meanwhile, what can we as Urban Designers do? I believed we can do a lot. Other than deploying AI in our daily lives. Technology advancement would impact the way we design urban spaces and give them new meaning. 

Big data and the use of spatial analysis provide discrete numbers for the understanding of urban spaces which could result in better designs. On another front, the revolution of Block Chain technology has created a new economy in the virtual world. The latest buzzword is Metaverse, an alternative virtual world where humans can exist and experience emotion through sensory stimulations. 

Earth 2.

Metaverse has garnered a lot of investment, some invested in virtual land, others in firms creating Metaverse world, and Facebook changed its name to META. Earth 2 caught my attention where land was parceled up on Satellite images and sold in digital currency between Ether and Essence. 

Meta Quest 2

Urban Designers and Architects have been creating 3D cities and buildings since the early nineties. The only difference was back then we do not have the VR goggles cheaply available at the price point of five hundred dollars. Now, Oculus has smashed that price point with Oculus Meta 2. 

I started to use the Oculus Rift in 2019. The setup was rather elaborate, needing two separate stands to capture movement and the goggle to see 3d. The controls are done using two separate gimbals. It was a good start as I could experience my design in full scale. It was awesome and mesmerizing. I painted in 3D too. Now I use the Quest 2, which is much simpler, register on the mobile and it was done, to see 360 rendered spaces and also uses spatial.io to host my gallery design and exhibitions. I had done a few exhibitions and intend to create more galleries. 

Video of the exhibition of my calligraphy in spatial.io. Access here. Best with chrome. Not supported on Safari.

In the near Future

Soon with more funds pouring into Spatial.io. Soon we will be able to design and build a city in Spatial. Soon we have to find out what is our concern when designing urban spaces in Metaverse. Or is there Urban spaces if they are all so virtual? Many things are not needed, no need table, chair, and bed. Even structure is not needed to hold up roof and floor. They just appear floating in space. Something to think about. What do urban designer design in Metaverse? I have no answer, but I will keep thinking about virtual spaces. 

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