Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts. And how the
Speaker 1: tech are you? So? I have an interesting topic today.
Speaker 1: An artist named Alicia Framus plans to do something unprecedented.
Speaker 1: She plans to get married to an artificially intelligent hologram,
Speaker 1: which is really in sort of her words, not mine.
Speaker 1: And there is a lot to unpack there. I've got
Speaker 1: a lot of questions. Now, some of those questions are
Speaker 1: actually technical, right, some of them are ethical, some of
Speaker 1: them are just downright skeptical. So, for example, what does
Speaker 1: she mean by hologram? That is a term that really
Speaker 1: means a specific thing but frequently gets misused to me
Speaker 1: other things. And then who developed the AI and how
Speaker 1: was it trained? And what does she specifically mean by AI?
Speaker 1: Are we talking just strictly generative AI? So essentially, you know,
Speaker 1: a chat bought type thing like you know, open AIS,
Speaker 1: chat GPT. Is that what she means by AI? Does
Speaker 1: she mean something beyond just a generative AI? Is it
Speaker 1: AI that would have some form of control over the hologram?
Speaker 1: I mean presumably that would happen right, Like the AI
Speaker 1: would be able to determine where the hologram could be
Speaker 1: directing its quote unquote attention, all that kind of stuff, like,
Speaker 1: how is the AI supposed to sense her? What elements?
Speaker 1: What technical elements are there so that the hologram AI
Speaker 1: has a quote unquote awareness of where she happens to be.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're with an actual other person, they
Speaker 1: can direct their attention toward you in very way, But
Speaker 1: a hologram can't do that on its own right. You
Speaker 1: would have to pair it with something else, like a
Speaker 1: camera system or something, and have some computer vision elements
Speaker 1: to process that in order for the hologram to face
Speaker 1: the correct way. Like, there are a lot of technical
Speaker 1: questions that go along with this. Also, to what extent,
Speaker 1: if any, will any agency of authority recognize this union
Speaker 1: if she's to get married to a hologram? What does
Speaker 1: that mean? Does it? I don't think it actually means
Speaker 1: getting married in a legal sense. It is more of
Speaker 1: a symbolic thing, which is fine. This is an artist
Speaker 1: we're talking about, and in fact, the purpose of her
Speaker 1: art is largely to ask questions that we don't necessarily
Speaker 1: have the answers to So this isn't just me being frustrated.
Speaker 1: I mean, some of it is frustrating, but it's also
Speaker 1: the point of the whole exercise is to start asking
Speaker 1: questions like what does this mean for the future, because
Speaker 1: Alicia on her website or someone on her behalf points
Speaker 1: out that in the future we are likely to see
Speaker 1: cases of people wanting to have actual relationships with artificial constructs.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've already seen examples of that before with AI,
Speaker 1: like boyfriends and girlfriends to varying degrees of success, and
Speaker 1: so it's really just an extension of that. Now, keeping
Speaker 1: in mind that Framus has made a career out of
Speaker 1: exploring the depths of human experience, including loneliness, it's only
Speaker 1: fair that we acknowledge the artistic element of this event.
Speaker 1: Is what I was just saying a second ago. I mean,
Speaker 1: you could call this just a stunt, and to some
Speaker 1: extent I could see that being a fair assessment saying
Speaker 1: this is kind of a stunt. But you know, we
Speaker 1: also have to admit that AI is playing an increasingly
Speaker 1: larger role in our lives, for good and for ill,
Speaker 1: and keeping in mind AI means lots of stuff right.
Speaker 1: It's not just the jurni of AI. We see AI
Speaker 1: being incorporated all over the place. Some cases it's not
Speaker 1: nearly as obvious, but it's certainly there, and like it
Speaker 1: or not, things like AI and robotics are going to
Speaker 1: play a part in physical relationships in the future as well.
Speaker 1: We humans are complicated creatures, and sometimes it means we
Speaker 1: might find it challenging or even impossible to find another
Speaker 1: human with whom we can share ourselves, and perhaps it
Speaker 1: might be easier to engineer a simulation of a person
Speaker 1: to fill those needs. This, of course, is not a
Speaker 1: groundbreaking idea. There are plenty of science fiction stories that
Speaker 1: have explored this concept thoroughly. There's the phenomenal science fiction
Speaker 1: film from twenty fourteen titled Ex Makina, in which a
Speaker 1: narcissistic tech billionaire brings a computer programmer to a remote
Speaker 1: mansion to judge whether a female presenting robot has self
Speaker 1: awareness and true intelligence that has elements of romantic feeling
Speaker 1: between a human and a robot. Or there's the equally
Speaker 1: phenomenal nineteen eighty seven film Making Mister Right, in which
Speaker 1: John Malkovich plays both an anti social human engineer and
Speaker 1: his robotic duplicate who seems to actually be more human
Speaker 1: than his human creator. And I'm being a little cheeky
Speaker 1: when I say that Making Mister Wright is equal to
Speaker 1: X mock it Up. I don't actually believe that, but
Speaker 1: it is a movie, and it does explore this idea
Speaker 1: from a romantic comedy perspective. Anyway, most of these science
Speaker 1: fiction stories at some point explore what it means to
Speaker 1: be human, or what intelligence actually means, whether an artificial
Speaker 1: construct can experience emotional connections, what effect this could have
Speaker 1: on humanity as a whole, and a host of other
Speaker 1: philosophical and ethical concepts. And based on what I've read,
Speaker 1: Alicia Framus is looking at the issue from a very
Speaker 1: human perspective. Can we seek and receive emotional fulfillment from
Speaker 1: an AI creation? But before we get into all that,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the tech. Because this is tech stuff.
Speaker 1: We need to talk about holograms and artificial intelligence in general.
Speaker 1: And this is going to be tricky because in most
Speaker 1: of the articles I've come across, there's a distinct lack
Speaker 1: of technical information about Framus's project. There are plenty of
Speaker 1: photographs in which Framos appears with a ghostly image of
Speaker 1: a man. In fact, I can't help but walk away
Speaker 1: with the impression that Framus is engaged to a forced
Speaker 1: ghost from the Star Wars universe, because that's what it
Speaker 1: looks like. But these are clearly manufactured images, right, These
Speaker 1: are not actual pictures of her with a hologram. It's
Speaker 1: just pictures that go along with the concept of her
Speaker 1: artistic project. There's not really a holographic rogue gentleman posing
Speaker 1: with Framus in a courtyard, because that would be very
Speaker 1: hard to pull off. Any sort of three dimensional projection
Speaker 1: would require a lot of equipment, and you couldn't just
Speaker 1: have some hologram spawned taneously appear in any given location.
Speaker 1: That's not how they work. It's not like you know
Speaker 1: in Quantum Leap or Star Trek or you know, a
Speaker 1: Red Dwarf probably the best example. There's no way for
Speaker 1: a hologram to just be free roaming, and of course
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be a hologram anyway, but we'll get into that,
Speaker 1: it's not really a hologram. So according to numerous pieces,
Speaker 1: and I suspect all of these pieces traced back to
Speaker 1: like a single press release on the matter, because a
Speaker 1: lot of it seems to be pulling from Alisha Framus's
Speaker 1: own website. The figure that will accompany Alisha Framus at
Speaker 1: the wedding ceremony the summer in Rotterdam will be a
Speaker 1: quote unquote holographic sculpture. Now that can mean lots of
Speaker 1: different things. It could mean that there's an actual physical
Speaker 1: figure like a mannequin, like a blank mannequin, and this
Speaker 1: hologram quote unquote will be projected or otherwise displayed on
Speaker 1: the figure, sort of like a three D mapping projection thing.
Speaker 1: Because again, it's really hard for me to imagine a freestanding,
Speaker 1: ephemeral hologram made up of only light saying I do.
Speaker 1: It's not that it would be impossible, but you would
Speaker 1: have to put in a whole lot of work to
Speaker 1: create the projectors. And maybe that is what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a big artistic project, so maybe
Speaker 1: there will be the equipment. But doing this you need
Speaker 1: a lot of control over your environment in order for
Speaker 1: it to have the right effect, because if you have
Speaker 1: too much ambient light, it's really going to mess things up.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about light and holograms. Now, this is
Speaker 1: a very complicated topic. And I want to say that.
Speaker 1: You know, back when I worked at houstuffworks dot com,
Speaker 1: our senior writer, our head writer, Tracy Wilson, who is
Speaker 1: now one of the co hosts of Stuff You Missed
Speaker 1: in History Class, she nearly went bananas working on this article.
Speaker 1: She did a phenomenal job. By the way, I'm not
Speaker 1: no shade on Tracy. She did far better writing this
Speaker 1: article than I would have. And I say that because
Speaker 1: it's very challenging to break down a hologram into a
Speaker 1: simple concept that you can explain, because it's one of
Speaker 1: those things where it's like an onion. In order to
Speaker 1: understand the hologram, you peel away a layer and you say, well,
Speaker 1: we really need to talk about interference, and we need
Speaker 1: to talk about things like reflection and refraction. We need
Speaker 1: to talk about how light travels as a wave or
Speaker 1: a particle. Then you strip it away again. You start
Speaker 1: getting further and further down, and you realize, oh, my
Speaker 1: starting point is so far back that this article is
Speaker 1: going to last fifty pages or this podcast will go
Speaker 1: four hours. We're not gonna do that. We're going to
Speaker 1: take a much more service level approach, because one it
Speaker 1: would take me a lot more time to really get
Speaker 1: my head wrapped around it, because while I did take
Speaker 1: physics in school and I loved physics, it has been
Speaker 1: like thirty years since I took those courses, and I
Speaker 1: would have to do a whole lot of research in
Speaker 1: order to dust the ring rust off my my brain
Speaker 1: and then I could maybe tackle it. So we talk
Speaker 1: about holograms. It means a specific thing, and one way
Speaker 1: to really break it down is to start with how
Speaker 1: a normal photograph works to contrast it with a hologram.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about photography. And with photography, you've got
Speaker 1: your camera and you point your camera at something interesting.
Speaker 1: Let's say it's your favorite tech podcaster ordering a burrito
Speaker 1: at a food truck, something that happens on a fairly
Speaker 1: frequent basis. And here's what happens. When you push the
Speaker 1: button to actually take the picture. Light from the scene,
Speaker 1: light reflecting off of your subject, in this case a
Speaker 1: tech podcaster ordering a brito. Light from that reflects off
Speaker 1: of those objects and enters into the camera through the lens,
Speaker 1: and the lens focuses the light to a point that's
Speaker 1: actually behind a shutter. So when the shutter's closed, no
Speaker 1: light can pass beyond that. But the shutter when you
Speaker 1: push the button opens and this shutter could be mechanical,
Speaker 1: it could be electronic. You know, it doesn't really matter
Speaker 1: for the purposes of this. The point is that it
Speaker 1: allows light to come through. The light moves through an
Speaker 1: opening called the aperture, and then it passes to hit
Speaker 1: a medium, a recording medium, which could be film in
Speaker 1: the old days, or it could be a digital sensor.
Speaker 1: Probably a digital sensor. I mean, unless you happen to
Speaker 1: like shooting on film, and maybe you do. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: I enjoy it. The medium makes a record of the
Speaker 1: light that entered in through the scene, and what you
Speaker 1: end up with is a two dimensional image of whatever
Speaker 1: it was you were taking a photo of, in this
Speaker 1: case tech podcast or ordering a brito. Now, as you're aware,
Speaker 1: this image is limited to a single angle. You know,
Speaker 1: the angle what you were at when you took the photo.
Speaker 1: You can't turn the image around in the photo and
Speaker 1: see what you know. I I'm sorry, I mean your
Speaker 1: favorite tech podcaster look like on the opposite side. You
Speaker 1: can't flip it around, say oh, and here's the backside
Speaker 1: of that photograph. You're just limited to that single perspective. Now,
Speaker 1: let's go a step further and talk about three D photography. Now,
Speaker 1: one way to achieve a three D effect would be
Speaker 1: to use two cameras, and these two cameras would be
Speaker 1: slightly offset from each other, similar to how your eyes
Speaker 1: are offset from each other. Right, you have one toward
Speaker 1: the left, one toward the right. So when you're looking
Speaker 1: at something, your brain is taking in visual information from
Speaker 1: two slightly different angles and then combining that into a
Speaker 1: single image in your brain, and the two cameras will
Speaker 1: take a picture at the same time from slightly different perspectives,
Speaker 1: kind of mimicking that physical effect. You then present this
Speaker 1: pair of images that are offset from one another, and
Speaker 1: you do it in such a way that the viewer
Speaker 1: will get a different image for each eye. And you
Speaker 1: can use various filters to do this. So in the
Speaker 1: old days, back in the mid twentieth century, like the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, you might use a real cheap pair of
Speaker 1: three D glasses where you have a red filmilter for
Speaker 1: one eye and a blue filter for the other eye.
Speaker 1: And so let's say it's red for the right, blue
Speaker 1: for the left, and in one of the sets of
Speaker 1: images you would have it tinted blue, which would be
Speaker 1: blocked by the blue lens, so that eye, the left
Speaker 1: eye would not see that set of images, but the
Speaker 1: right eye would. The other set of images would be
Speaker 1: tinted red, so your right eye behind the red filter
Speaker 1: would not see those images. It'd be filtered out by
Speaker 1: the lens in front of your eye, so your left
Speaker 1: eye would get one set of images, your right eye
Speaker 1: would get the other set of images. Your brain would
Speaker 1: combine the two in your head, and voila, you have
Speaker 1: what appears to be a three dimensional shape in front
Speaker 1: of you. Now these days, you're more likely to use
Speaker 1: a different method like polarized light, and you would have
Speaker 1: light polarized in one way so that the left eye
Speaker 1: would see those sets of images, and polarize the different
Speaker 1: way so the right eye would see those set of images,
Speaker 1: and again your brain combines it. The brain part is
Speaker 1: the same, it's just how you end up filtering out
Speaker 1: one set versus another. So that's how most three D
Speaker 1: films work these days. You can also have active three
Speaker 1: D glasses. These have electronic shutters in them, and they're
Speaker 1: timed so that they turn off and on in time
Speaker 1: with the sets of images that are displayed on a screen.
Speaker 1: So the left eye gets one set, the right eye
Speaker 1: gets another set, and what's actually happening is your screen
Speaker 1: is alternating these sets, but doing so at a very
Speaker 1: very high frequency that you wouldn't necessarily notice without the
Speaker 1: glasses on. Now, the point is this approach creates a
Speaker 1: three D effect, but you're still working under limitations because
Speaker 1: while the image will appear to have depth to it,
Speaker 1: like it'll look like it's coming off the screen, or
Speaker 1: that the screen itself has depth, you can't walk around
Speaker 1: the image and view it from different angles. It can
Speaker 1: look like you might be able to do that, but
Speaker 1: then if you were to get up and move to
Speaker 1: a different part of the room, you would not actually
Speaker 1: have a change in perspective. It would still be the same.
Speaker 1: It would still have depth, but it wouldn't have changed
Speaker 1: perspective at all. There's no parallax, and parallax is quote
Speaker 1: the apparent displacement or the difference in apparent direction of
Speaker 1: an object as seen from two different points, not on
Speaker 1: a straight line with the object end quote. That's according
Speaker 1: to Merriam Webster. So to achieve parallax, you would need
Speaker 1: a way to project a hologram, which we will talk
Speaker 1: about after we take this quick break. All right, To
Speaker 1: talk about holograms, we do have to understand a little
Speaker 1: bit about how light works and that it travels in waves,
Speaker 1: but it also can travel as a particle. We know
Speaker 1: that because of quantum physics. But we're going to leave
Speaker 1: that for now. We're just going to talk about the waves.
Speaker 1: So waves are of the same type, can interact with
Speaker 1: each other. Right, You see this in water, So a
Speaker 1: classic example in keeping water and light behave in different ways,
Speaker 1: but it's similar enough that we can kind of make
Speaker 1: this analogy. But if you have a still pond, and
Speaker 1: you've got two pebbles, and you drop those two pebbles
Speaker 1: where they are a couple of feet away from each other,
Speaker 1: When they make contact with the water, they obviously each
Speaker 1: cause ripples to radiate outward from the point of contact.
Speaker 1: And because you drop these two pebbles fairly close to
Speaker 1: each other, the ripples from one are going to interact
Speaker 1: with the ripples of another, and they will end up
Speaker 1: interfering with one another. Well, the same sort of thing
Speaker 1: happens with light. So to create a traditional hologram on film,
Speaker 1: that's one way to create a hologram. The basic approach
Speaker 1: is to use a laser and a beam splitter, and
Speaker 1: you put whatever subject it is that you want to
Speaker 1: capture as a hologram. Let's say it's a vintage nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties action figure of mister T. You put that in
Speaker 1: line with a path for part of this laser beam.
Speaker 1: So you direct this laser beam through the beam splitter, which,
Speaker 1: as its name implies, splits the beam into two identical lasers,
Speaker 1: and one of those beams ends up following down a
Speaker 1: path and is directed by mirrors to hit mister T.
Speaker 1: And this is the object beam. It's the object beam
Speaker 1: because it's the beam that actually interacts with the object.
Speaker 1: Some of the light reflects off of mister T and
Speaker 1: hits your recording medium, so our holographic film in this case,
Speaker 1: the film it gets this light hit and captures the information.
Speaker 1: Now the other beam, because remember we split into two,
Speaker 1: the other beam goes down a different path from the
Speaker 1: first one, and mirrors redirect it so that this beam
Speaker 1: hits the recording medium directly. It does not interact with
Speaker 1: mister T. It pities the fool. Instead, it just hits
Speaker 1: the holographic film. So this is what we call the
Speaker 1: reference beam, and the reference beam and the object beam
Speaker 1: interact at the medium. There's interference created by these two beams,
Speaker 1: and the result is that the recorded data on that
Speaker 1: film allows for the creation of the hologram. It contains
Speaker 1: the information, and after developing the film and by illuminating
Speaker 1: it in a specific way, which depends upon your method
Speaker 1: of creating the hologram in the first place, you can
Speaker 1: create an image that appears to have three dimensions. Now
Speaker 1: we're talking about film here, right, so we are still
Speaker 1: talking about a picture. The picture itself is effectively two dimensional,
Speaker 1: technically has three dimensions, but it's thin, so you don't
Speaker 1: really think of it that way. It's like a piece
Speaker 1: of paper, right, But the image on this photograph would
Speaker 1: appear to have three dimensions, right, Like you would stand
Speaker 1: in front of the photograph and you'd be able to
Speaker 1: lean to the left or lean to the right and
Speaker 1: see different angles of the imaged object. But you couldn't
Speaker 1: do a full three hundred and sixty degree walk around
Speaker 1: of it, because again, it's a photograph, right, It's just
Speaker 1: like a regular picture. If you were to walk around,
Speaker 1: you would just see the back of the photograph. It
Speaker 1: would just be a blank surface, but from the front,
Speaker 1: from the viewing angles, you could see different three dimensional
Speaker 1: aspects of this object. And that's a really cool effect.
Speaker 1: That is a hologram. And you might say, well, that
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like a freestanding hologram, not the way that
Speaker 1: Alicia Framus is talking about, and it's not because a
Speaker 1: lot of the stuff that gets billed as a hologram
Speaker 1: isn't really a hologram at all. It's something else, and
Speaker 1: it could be one of many things if you think
Speaker 1: about like the hologram of Tupac Shakur at the twenty
Speaker 1: twelve Coachella Festival. Now, Tupac Shakur was killed in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety six, so obviously a tragic moment, and this was
Speaker 1: like a triumphant moment to see Tupac Shakur performing in
Speaker 1: front of a live crowd at twenty twelve's Coachella. And
Speaker 1: it was said to have been a hologram, like a
Speaker 1: holographic image of Shakur performing in front of the crowd.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a hologram. Instead, it was an example of
Speaker 1: a very old effect called Pepper's ghost illusion. It actually
Speaker 1: traces its history back to the nineteenth century, and it
Speaker 1: takes its name from a guy named John Henry Pepper
Speaker 1: who was an inventor in the United Kingdom and involves
Speaker 1: a few different elements. So you have your audience who
Speaker 1: happen to be in a very specific place, right, Like,
Speaker 1: you can't do Pepper's Ghost in theater in the round,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't work. But if your audience is in a
Speaker 1: specific spot relative to the stage, you can do it.
Speaker 1: So you need your staging area as in the actual
Speaker 1: place where the audience is viewing. Then you need the
Speaker 1: hidden staging area it's outside of the audience's view. And
Speaker 1: then you have to have an angled, transparent and reflective
Speaker 1: surface at a forty five degree angle, and that's important.
Speaker 1: You need to be able to see through the surface
Speaker 1: because otherwise you're just looking at a screen, right. You
Speaker 1: need to be able to have it be reflective or
Speaker 1: else slight. It's not going to be able to really
Speaker 1: interact with it in a meaningful way, and it has
Speaker 1: to be angled in order to get the proper effect
Speaker 1: for the audience. So the angled surface, which typically is
Speaker 1: something like a pane of very very clean glass, acts
Speaker 1: as a sort of reflective screen and performers in the
Speaker 1: hidden room are very well lit. So again, this hidden room,
Speaker 1: the audience can't see it. It's off to the side,
Speaker 1: and it has a straight line to the reflective surface,
Speaker 1: but not to the audience's point of view. And it's
Speaker 1: very well lit because it needs to be bright enough
Speaker 1: so that the glass, the angle glass, captures the reflection
Speaker 1: of the performers. The audience can then see the reflections,
Speaker 1: and because the reflections are on transparent glass, and because
Speaker 1: they can see through the glass or whatever other material
Speaker 1: is being used, they can have the effect of these
Speaker 1: figures being incorporated in the scene that's on the stage.
Speaker 1: Those figures can also appear in substantial and you get
Speaker 1: this ghost effect. So in depending upon how you've lit
Speaker 1: the stage and the figures that are in the hidden room,
Speaker 1: they might look transparent ghostly. You could even have other
Speaker 1: actors on stage, like live actors on stage within the
Speaker 1: audience's view and they can appear to interact with the
Speaker 1: ghostly figures that are also present. So it's a pretty
Speaker 1: cool effect. If you've ever ridden the Haunted Mansion ride
Speaker 1: at Disneyland or disney World, you've seen this effect in action.
Speaker 1: There's a large ballroom scene that features numerous ghosts, and
Speaker 1: these ghosts fade in and out of view in front
Speaker 1: of your eyes. They are actually reflections created by Pepper's ghost.
Speaker 1: Above and below your doom buggy track. There are staging
Speaker 1: areas with these figures in them, so they're above you
Speaker 1: and below you, and the areas that they're in have
Speaker 1: lights that turn on and turn off, so when the
Speaker 1: lights come on, then you can see the reflection of
Speaker 1: the figures. When the lights go off, the reflections disappear,
Speaker 1: So the effect you have is that these ghostly images
Speaker 1: manifest and then disappear in front of your very eyes.
Speaker 1: In a similar way, special effects folks can create the
Speaker 1: illusion of a person being an event, even if they
Speaker 1: happen to have shuffled off the moral coil, or maybe
Speaker 1: they're not even a real person. Maybe it's an animated character.
Speaker 1: So rather than a pane of glass, the effects artists
Speaker 1: might use what's called a pepper scrim surface. This is
Speaker 1: a metallic gauze that you can see through. In fact,
Speaker 1: it's invisible to the naked eye, and it acts as
Speaker 1: like a reflective screen for projections, and these projections typically
Speaker 1: are digital rather than a reflection of a physical object.
Speaker 1: So instead of having a hidden room where you've got
Speaker 1: a light that is allowing the reflection to hit this surface,
Speaker 1: you've got a projector and you're just projecting onto the
Speaker 1: surface directly. That's how Tubac showed up at Coach. It's
Speaker 1: also how various anime singers are able to appear at
Speaker 1: real world concerts. And these are not holograms, right, It's
Speaker 1: not any different honestly from using just a projector and
Speaker 1: a screen, because like a projector in the screen, you
Speaker 1: can't walk around that, you can't view it from different
Speaker 1: angles and get that parallax effect. And you know, if
Speaker 1: you did try to walk around it, you wouldn't have
Speaker 1: the experience of looking at a three dimensional figure. But
Speaker 1: folks often will refer to these projections as holograms. I'm
Speaker 1: here to remind you that words mean things, and that
Speaker 1: when we misuse words, we just create confusion. Now, I
Speaker 1: don't know if Framus is intended is going to be
Speaker 1: a Pepper's Ghost illusion. I don't know if if quote
Speaker 1: unquote he I don't know. I don't know what pronoun
Speaker 1: to use it. I don't know if it is going
Speaker 1: to be a Pepper's Ghost illusion. It's possible she could
Speaker 1: use something like a volumetric display. It's unlikely, but she could.
Speaker 1: This is actually a pretty broad category of technologies, and
Speaker 1: in fact, I would need to do a episode just
Speaker 1: on volumetric displays to really tackle it properly. But generally speaking,
Speaker 1: they allow for the display of three dimensional images without
Speaker 1: the audience needing to wear special glasses or headgear. So
Speaker 1: sometimes they call it, you know, glasses free three D.
Speaker 1: But the point is there's still a display, right, There's
Speaker 1: still a physical display in play here. It's a medium
Speaker 1: upon which light reflects. And it could be that the
Speaker 1: volumetric display is actually in motion. It's spinning or otherwise
Speaker 1: moving rapidly, far faster than we can see. But the
Speaker 1: medium is moving in such a way as to reflect
Speaker 1: light at the specific locations it needs to in order
Speaker 1: to create the illusion of a three dimensional image. So
Speaker 1: it's still a surface. And I say this only to
Speaker 1: point out that volumetric displays can be really impressive, but
Speaker 1: they're also stationary, right. They're not something again that you
Speaker 1: could just have as a free, roaming three dimensional hologram
Speaker 1: wandering around your house. You would have to have very
Speaker 1: specific locations where the hologram would be able to appear.
Speaker 1: The same could be said for so called solid light projections.
Speaker 1: These are also really cool, but again you need to
Speaker 1: have the projectors to make it work, and they aren't
Speaker 1: gonna go anywhere. These are big, big pieces of equipment.
Speaker 1: These are able to project light in such a way
Speaker 1: that they can create the illusion of a three dimensional
Speaker 1: object appearing within a physical space, and in order to
Speaker 1: do that, you have to have very specific control of
Speaker 1: the lighting environment, otherwise you're going to have issues. And
Speaker 1: you also have to again have these physical projectors set
Speaker 1: up at specific locations in order to achieve the effect
Speaker 1: you want. And it's very limiting. It's a cool effect.
Speaker 1: I've seen videos of never seen one in person, by
Speaker 1: the way, I've just seen video of them in action.
Speaker 1: But they work for like a permanent exhibit, right Like
Speaker 1: if you were to go to a museum, a science
Speaker 1: museum or something that had one of them, you could
Speaker 1: see a really cool effect, but you wouldn't see that
Speaker 1: object moving around the whole space. You would have to
Speaker 1: go through a lot of trouble to set up all
Speaker 1: the hard ware you needed in order to create multiple
Speaker 1: locations that a quote unquote hologram could travel in order
Speaker 1: for you to have like a realistic interaction with a
Speaker 1: spouse in your home, you wouldn't be able to have
Speaker 1: your holographic spouse accompany you while you pop out to
Speaker 1: the shops to get your bits and bobs. That just
Speaker 1: wouldn't happen. And like I said, I could do a
Speaker 1: whole series of episodes on things like volumetric displays and
Speaker 1: solid light, but we still need to talk about the
Speaker 1: AI element and Framus's proposal. The holographic element is just
Speaker 1: one half of it, and again we don't have enough
Speaker 1: information to really tackle it in a meaningful way, except
Speaker 1: to say that when she says hologram, she probably doesn't
Speaker 1: actually mean hologram. According to the pieces I read, the
Speaker 1: AI is supposed to draw from Framus's own romantic past,
Speaker 1: and she says it's supposed to incorporate elements and characteristics
Speaker 1: from people in her past relationships. Now, to achieve that,
Speaker 1: the engineers have to train the AI on people that
Speaker 1: Framus formerly had romantic relationships with, and to do that,
Speaker 1: they're going to turn largely to social platforms. Okay, we're
Speaker 1: going to take another quick break. When we come back,
Speaker 1: we're going to tackle what this means and the ethical
Speaker 1: implications that accompany it. But first, let's take another quick
Speaker 1: break to think are sponsors? Okay? So Alicia Framus plans
Speaker 1: to train this AI on the social platforms of her
Speaker 1: past romantic relationships. This raises some pretty serious ethical questions,
Speaker 1: at least for me. Is it ethical to create an
Speaker 1: artificially intelligent construct based off of real people? Now? I
Speaker 1: don't know if her exes have given their consent to this,
Speaker 1: like if they said, oh, it's fine if you train
Speaker 1: this AI on my social platforms. I hope that they've
Speaker 1: given their consent, because otherwise this gets really creepy really fast.
Speaker 1: I mean, let me just give you a simple example.
Speaker 1: Let's say that there's a creepy person who has developed
Speaker 1: an obsessive attraction toward someone else. And this creepy person,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, either feels that they have no shot
Speaker 1: with this object of their desire, or they legitimately don't
Speaker 1: have a shot. Maybe the object of their desires already
Speaker 1: in a committed relationship and has no interest in pursuing
Speaker 1: anything else. Whatever the case, so the creepy person has decided,
Speaker 1: you know what I'll do is I'll just create an
Speaker 1: AI version of this person, and I'm going to train
Speaker 1: the AI on this person's social media and I'm going
Speaker 1: to create a copy of them that gets pretty creepy, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's removing consent, it's removing agency from the object
Speaker 1: of desire. You could argue, well, ultimately the creepy person
Speaker 1: is developed is completely committing their focus to a construct
Speaker 1: and not the actual person. I'm not sure that that's
Speaker 1: healthy either, but it just it gives off some uncomfortable vibes.
Speaker 1: And also we have to keep in mind that the
Speaker 1: person we present on social media, right, the version of
Speaker 1: us that we present to the world often is not
Speaker 1: a true reflection of who we are. Right, A lot
Speaker 1: of folks will put forth their best self on social
Speaker 1: media and the leave out stuff that perhaps is maybe
Speaker 1: less complementary. And this is just a natural kind of
Speaker 1: thing that a lot of let's go with. Right. We
Speaker 1: get on these social platforms and we want to show
Speaker 1: how exciting our day is, how amazing, this meal is,
Speaker 1: this gorgeous location we happen to be at, But we're
Speaker 1: not showing all the more mundane, humdrum stuff or the
Speaker 1: negative stuff that's going on in our lives not nearly
Speaker 1: to the same extent, So any AI trained version of
Speaker 1: a person is likely to be a poor representation or
Speaker 1: at least an incomplete representation of that person. So there's
Speaker 1: some real gray areas here already about creating an AI
Speaker 1: that is at least in part based on a person
Speaker 1: or multiple people. But anyway, for Alicia Framus's project, the
Speaker 1: AI is being called ai Lex or Alex or Ilex
Speaker 1: or just Alex. I don't know, although arguably this is
Speaker 1: not just the name of the AI, it's the name
Speaker 1: of the part and parcel package of the AI and
Speaker 1: the quote unquote holographic sculpture. Beyond the ethical is I
Speaker 1: really wonder how effective Alex is going to be as
Speaker 1: a simulation of a person, because we have seen some
Speaker 1: phenomenal strides and generative AI capabilities over the last few years,
Speaker 1: but we've also seen time and again how these technologies
Speaker 1: can run up against limitations, right, whether it's an AI
Speaker 1: construct going off the rails by making offensive content like
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of when Microsoft launched an AI tool that
Speaker 1: it took down in less than twenty four hours because
Speaker 1: it started spouting off some terrible stuff due to people
Speaker 1: specifically making it do that, or we get cases of
Speaker 1: AI hallucinating or confabulating, if you prefer that term, which
Speaker 1: is when they start producing incorrect answers to queries. You know,
Speaker 1: rather than saying I don't know the answer to that,
Speaker 1: they just invent one based upon statistical probabilities of words
Speaker 1: that should follow in a sentence. We're all familiar with
Speaker 1: cases in which AI just can come up, so one
Speaker 1: wonders how that could play out in the context of
Speaker 1: a relationship. Now, on the flip side, you could argue, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: AI could make some really bad mistakes and start making
Speaker 1: stuff up when they don't really know what they're talking about.
Speaker 1: But then human beings do that too. Being in a
Speaker 1: relationship with another human being is bound to include times
Speaker 1: when you are at odds with one another. Whether it's
Speaker 1: a misunderstanding or it's a disagreement or an out and
Speaker 1: out fight, These things do happen. So you could argue,
Speaker 1: why should we hold AI to a higher standard than
Speaker 1: we would hold an actual human person. And I don't
Speaker 1: really have an answer to that. I just know that,
Speaker 1: you know, when we talk about AI, we know about
Speaker 1: the shortcomings of AI, and so knowing that and thinking
Speaker 1: about how that could impact and implementation of AI, in
Speaker 1: which it's supposed to stand in for a romantic partner.
Speaker 1: It raises these questions. Now. According to Alicia Framus's own website,
Speaker 1: the artist is quote passionate about dedicating her soul and
Speaker 1: body to science and art in order to develop deeper
Speaker 1: relationships and assist individuals with congenital or acquired diseases, physical disabilities,
Speaker 1: gender imbalances in certain countries, social requirements and stereotypes in
Speaker 1: different cultures, as well as those who have experienced trauma
Speaker 1: or suffer from agloraphobia, disfigurement, or fear end quote. Now
Speaker 1: put that way, this all sounds admirable. It really puts
Speaker 1: this work into a different context because this is one
Speaker 1: that trends toward accessibility. Now, in general, I'm in favor
Speaker 1: of technologies that grant people access to things and experiences
Speaker 1: that they might otherwise not have or have difficulty accessing.
Speaker 1: Increasing agency is a really noble goal in my opinion.
Speaker 1: But there are other questions that I have and I
Speaker 1: haven't seen answers to them yet. For example, where will
Speaker 1: this AI be hosted? This is getting back to the
Speaker 1: technical site. Where does the AI live, not like within
Speaker 1: her house, but literally where is the AI living on
Speaker 1: a computer? What physical machines are going to provide the
Speaker 1: processing power for this AI? I presume it's going to
Speaker 1: be cloud based, as AI functionality really requires a hefty
Speaker 1: amount of processing power. Now, it could be a strictly
Speaker 1: local installation, which is entirely possible. That just doesn't seem
Speaker 1: likely to me, but it is possible. Like wherever Sheep
Speaker 1: lands on holding this exhibition and showing off these various performances,
Speaker 1: it could be that the AI instance is locally living there.
Speaker 1: But then how is the AI going to manipulate the
Speaker 1: holographic element? How are these two different technological pieces linked?
Speaker 1: Because again, generative AI doesn't just magically know how to
Speaker 1: control a projection. Will the hologram, in whatever form it
Speaker 1: takes be a digital puppet? In other words, will it
Speaker 1: be a digital construct and its mouth will move in
Speaker 1: accordance to whatever sounds are being generated by the generative
Speaker 1: AI part? The body of the hologram is not the
Speaker 1: same thing as the AI simulated personality. This is kind
Speaker 1: of weird to think about, Like, there's not an easy
Speaker 1: analogy we can make. I guess you could say, well,
Speaker 1: imagine that your brain is in a jar, but you're
Speaker 1: still able to control your otherwise brainless body as it
Speaker 1: moves around. They are two separate things in this scenario
Speaker 1: that would be similar to what we're talking about here.
Speaker 1: But of course that's not the way our bodies work.
Speaker 1: Our brains are incorporated within our bodies. They are when
Speaker 1: we think of ourselves, we don't break it down, we
Speaker 1: don't compartmentalize typically whether or not we're talking about our
Speaker 1: body or our brain, like it's just us. But for
Speaker 1: this AI construct, that's just not the case. It's separate
Speaker 1: things that are linked together, but they are separate. That
Speaker 1: being said, there are other ethical and social considerations that
Speaker 1: we should take into it count and arguably this is
Speaker 1: the very point of Alicia Framus's work. So, for example,
Speaker 1: in some parts of the world, there are regions that
Speaker 1: have an aging population, so you have a larger number
Speaker 1: of older people and a smaller number of younger people,
Speaker 1: and as those numbers for younger people get smaller, those
Speaker 1: generations may start to find it challenging to find a
Speaker 1: romantic partner. And it's possible that opening up this Pandora's
Speaker 1: box of forming relationships with artificially intelligent beings could really
Speaker 1: exacerbate problems in those regions because people who might feel
Speaker 1: lonely could turn to tech to feel that void, which
Speaker 1: is understandable. But could that make it worse for the
Speaker 1: society overall, where it removes their desire to go out
Speaker 1: and find another human companion and thus perpetuate that society.
Speaker 1: Could this cure for loneliness ironically speed up social collapse
Speaker 1: in those regions? Now, this doesn't to me sound like
Speaker 1: an outlandish hypothesis. I don't think it would be you know,
Speaker 1: instantaneous or anything. But I do think it could make
Speaker 1: the problem more challenging. But I'm not ready to say
Speaker 1: it's a foregone conclusion. It may be that perhaps people
Speaker 1: would try this and for maybe some small percentage it
Speaker 1: would seem to really take hold, and for maybe other
Speaker 1: people they just say, no, this isn't what I need.
Speaker 1: So that leads to another question. Can AI actually provide
Speaker 1: the companionship that people desire? You've likely heard research suggests
Speaker 1: that people who have meaningful social relationships, and married people
Speaker 1: in particular, typically have longer life expectancies than those who
Speaker 1: lack those meaningful social relationships. So can an AI or
Speaker 1: robot provide the depth and meaning in a relationship that
Speaker 1: would then lead to this benefit, assuming that the research
Speaker 1: is drying on accu conclusion, that is, because it's possible
Speaker 1: that it's not. But assuming the research is accurate, would
Speaker 1: AI actually help reduce feelings of depression and isolation? Would
Speaker 1: it lead to healthier and longer lifespans. That's a question
Speaker 1: we just don't know the answer to. Or would it
Speaker 1: just seem that it would on a surface level fulfill
Speaker 1: the need but ultimately not provide those benefits. We don't know.
Speaker 1: Alicia Framus is likely exploring some of these questions and
Speaker 1: lots of other ones that haven't even thought about in
Speaker 1: her work. That's likely the point of this. I would
Speaker 1: never ask an artist to go into depth about the
Speaker 1: point of their work unless that was something they wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about, because often artists present things and while
Speaker 1: they might have their own intent their content, to let
Speaker 1: the world interpret their work, however the world does. She's
Speaker 1: also looking at, you know, some other mundane questions like
Speaker 1: is it possible to secure a mortgage for a home
Speaker 1: with a holographic co signer? Or can you design a
Speaker 1: home that allows for a holographic occupant. So again, like
Speaker 1: we talked about, all of these different ways of producing
Speaker 1: quote unquote holograms that aren't really holograms require that you
Speaker 1: have a lot of equipment, right, You have to have
Speaker 1: a lot of equipment and a lot of special conditions
Speaker 1: to allow for this manifestation, and that means like lots
Speaker 1: of projectors and controlled lighting and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Could you create a home that has enough of this
Speaker 1: to simulate the experience of having an actual spouse wandering
Speaker 1: through your house? Or is that impractical? I think it's impractical.
Speaker 1: Maybe not impossible, but I certainly think it's impractical. And
Speaker 1: then you could argue, well, if you have a house
Speaker 1: that's fully outfitted with all this equipment, where a quote
Speaker 1: unquote hologram could wander through the house freely, then you
Speaker 1: could probably also just have like a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: cloned versions of this person. You know, if you have
Speaker 1: all these different projectors, all the projectors could be producing
Speaker 1: a version of this person, and then you just have
Speaker 1: clones of your spouse in every room. But you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know how they're doing it
Speaker 1: because there's no technical information available from what I can tell.
Speaker 1: I suppose we're just going to learn a lot more.
Speaker 1: When Framous's project officially gets off the ground this summer.
Speaker 1: That's when the set of performances will begin, and the
Speaker 1: full set of performances are grouped under the title The
Speaker 1: Hybrid Couple. So I will keep an eye out and
Speaker 1: see about following up on this story as it unfolds.
Speaker 1: I still have questions about how this is going to
Speaker 1: work from a technical standpoint, but again it's because of
Speaker 1: a lack of information. I'm not saying that it's impossible
Speaker 1: to pull off. I'm just curious what method they're using
Speaker 1: or methods. Maybe they're using a collection of different ones.
Speaker 1: I don't know. But it is an interesting project and
Speaker 1: one that I think has merit because it is asking
Speaker 1: questions that we are going to have to answer. Even
Speaker 1: if you would argue this is far too early and
Speaker 1: that this version is an unrealistic version of what we
Speaker 1: can expect in the future, it still raises the questions
Speaker 1: that we will have to answer because this is something
Speaker 1: that is going to be part of our future. People
Speaker 1: have already developed feelings for AI chatbots. If you want
Speaker 1: to see a really good video essay about this with
Speaker 1: maybe some content warnings in there. Check out Sarah Z
Speaker 1: and is Sarah Z for all my fellow Americans on YouTube.
Speaker 1: She has a piece called the Rise and Fall of
Speaker 1: Replica that's our ep L I KA, in which she
Speaker 1: talks about an AI generated companion program that ended up
Speaker 1: having some massive changes along the way due to various reasons.
Speaker 1: But he has a good piece that kind of looks
Speaker 1: at this from the AI standpoint, and I think it's
Speaker 1: a valuable essay, one that is entertaining, interesting, and a
Speaker 1: little disturbing at points, but it kind of explores the
Speaker 1: same sort of area. I think Alicia Framus is looking
Speaker 1: at similar things, although from perhaps a slightly less salacious
Speaker 1: perspective than Replica was when it first launched. So check
Speaker 1: that out if you like. Sarah Z does great video essays.
Speaker 1: I don't know her, never interacted with her, so I
Speaker 1: just like her work and I recommend checking that out.
Speaker 1: It is an hour long, so it is a bit
Speaker 1: of a commitment, but it's worth viewing, and yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: interested to see how this plays out again. Still have
Speaker 1: lots of questions, both technical and otherwise, but you could
Speaker 1: argue that is the purpose of art. Or one of
Speaker 1: art's purposes. I don't want to pigeonhole why art exists
Speaker 1: or what it's for, but I would say that raising
Speaker 1: questions is definitely part of it, and if that's true,
Speaker 1: then goal achieved. I have lots of questions, so we'll
Speaker 1: come back to this. But I think it is a
Speaker 1: really interesting topic to contemplate. What is AI's role in
Speaker 1: the future when it comes to things like personal relationships
Speaker 1: and is it ultimately something that could be beneficial or
Speaker 1: have a negative impact on us or is it more
Speaker 1: complicated than that. Is it a combination. I suspect it
Speaker 1: is a combination of some sort. But there you go.
Speaker 1: That is my take so far on Alicia Framans's project
Speaker 1: to marry an AI quote unquote hologram. And we'll see
Speaker 1: how this plays out this summer summer of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: In case some of you are listening from the future,
Speaker 1: in which case maybe you're already, you know, attending a
Speaker 1: holographic wedding, in which case, what do you get? Where
Speaker 1: do they register? Okay, that's it. I hope you are
Speaker 1: all well, and I'll talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.