Conceptual:

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The concept for my project is to create virtual worlds using artificial intelligence the public can access today, in this case Cleverbot. This project is designed to test an already existing AI in the way it envisions worlds, specifically the way in which it views worlds. The value of this upcoming AI singularity is that we may be able to use it as a tool to enhance therapeutic treatments using Virtual Reality, thus making worlds based on the user’s interests by AI. The concept behind the project is that at some point there will be an AI singularity in which AI will be in a constant positive feedback loop in which the intelligence should pass that of humans (Prescott, 2013).

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The method of creating the outcome was to ‘speak’ to an AI, in this case Cleverbot, and ask it for what it wants to see in an image. This varied from what someone would expect to see in a normal landscape, which was what made it more interesting to learn more about. The commands from the AI were then taken into Adobe Illustrator and then edited to suit what the AI had envisioned the landscapes or worlds to look like. Specifically, I focused on making 2D designs due to it being simpler as a form of alpha testing the concept, rather than trying to create a 3D environment in which I would have little clue of the outcome.

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The project is to be interactive in nature with the user downloading an image created by me, through the adobe suite specifically Illustrator and Photoshop. Alongside an AI to see what is envisioned by the intelligence. There will be a series of images to view in which one is made purely by cleverbot and one is a collaboration between AI and human. I’ll include printed copies of the images also for the convenience of the viewer if they cannot access the online images.

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Through the presentation I will be taking note of the reactions to the worlds as whether it is taken to positively and to determine the further value of the project as of now. Specifically, I want to gauge people’s reactions to the idea of creating worlds through a process AI envisions. This will be done by simply taking notes of how people will react to the project.

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The worlds created will be through an algorithm that takes into consideration previous responses and inputs from the user, hence the dependence on Cleverbot as of now. The AI I’ve utilised is a self-learning algorithm like the AI I would like to see developed. The images produced would be personalized and feedback would be given based on the user interacting with it. The use of an image generator is the idea of personal use and creation of a more therapeutic background for mental health use. The value of this would possibly be the fact there wouldn’t really be a need to spend when there is a free variant of lying on a beach in the tropics.

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The concept is that there will be a ‘singularity’ in which AI will become self-aware and this could possibly lead to it being a constantly improving resource for different fields, this one specifically being health. I’ve chosen this due to the popularity in Virtual Reality now and there being less focus on the augmented reality (AR). The idea mostly came from the artificial landscapes generated by people in film where you can see these believable worlds created by computers, and the idea of taking out the humans involved is the project I have imagined.

Virtual worlds is a project that wants to see the idea of spending needlessly when there’s a cheaper more efficient way to light. There will always be a travel industry for people whom want to travel and this isn’t a competition however somethings can’t always exist and there is no limit to what an AI can dream, and due to VR show us.

 

 

Contextual:

 

Virtual Worlds is a concept of the idea of creating virtual worlds in which people can see from Artificial Intelligence’s (AI) eyes. The images created will be of value to those in the fields of Virtual Reality (VR), future technologies and mental health.  The main question I posed for this project was; “can we use AI as a tool for creative outcomes?” especially regarding the AI singularity. The AI singularity is the idea of a positive feedback loop in which machines developed to match human intelligence will constantly be improving in a way it should pass human intelligence (Prescott, 2013).

 

The context behind this is the AI singularity and me wanting to see if we can use this as a tool to use AI more creatively. The use of VR is emphasised due to the ease of access to it now and how it can be used from games to film. I would like to see how the AI the public can access today can be used as a tool to create images. It seems to me to be quite a popular technology now due to it being popularized by the media and being spoken about by many people, thus peaking my interest in how we can use AI as a tool for creative outcomes.

 

The fields that I’ve focused on in this project can be categorised as VR, Art and AI. Whilst all different fields I have found that they can all complement each other in ways other fields perhaps cannot.

 

The idea of using VR came from the use of it in training. The idea of using VR in training helps to reduce errors in the fields in which people are being trained in. There was an article I’ve read located in the British Journal of Surgery Society. In which they use VR as a tool in which people can learn to do these procedures in a safe environment in which there is many similarities to the real thing (Misra, 2017). This idea is what I have taken from this paper and makes me think of using this as a tool like AI to create a valuable resource for people to use when they want to. This shows the value of using VR as it could be improved over the next few years and could present itself to be a ground-breaking idea due to the ease of use and the interactivity of it. My project aims to use this in the presentation of these worlds due to its popularity and how it can be used and is being used in industry, especially in use regarding training and health as of now. This links back to the question due to the idea of the virtual world being created through an AI’s mind.

 

The connection to VR with art is the design of the environments. The idea of AI not being restricted to conventional means such as physics can be seen in the artist Salvador Dali. His works are similar in terms of how they don’t follow the means of conventional art. The abstract nature of his works is like Google’s Deep Dream algorithm in which it created images based on what the AI thinks something looks like (Alexander Mordvintsev, 2015), and obviously never actually seeing it due to it being a program.  He uses a method like deep dream to create dreams, changing the real world to be the way he wanted and not what it was or could physically be. This links to VR also in the way in which his works could be improved if he could have found a way in which to show his viewers the way in which he saw his worlds. Another key part of the project is the way in which the technology could be used in a therapeutic sense in which worlds can be created for the benefit of the individual. It could be a way in which someone could relax, which art could help benefit it, the director of Stanford university’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab focuses on how the nature of virtual spaces can help improve on fields such as health., he states that “VR is a medium for the extension of body and mind” (Beilenson, 2009). Another idea is the playfulness and the benefits that come from the project. Klaus-Peter Schulz states in his research that developments could be made in healthcare through the playful use of storytelling (Schulz, 2017), which could be very similar to the Virtual Words project through its playful way in which it hopes to create a therapeutic experience for the viewer. The artistic field also links to the question posed due to the idea of an AI being able to create art and if it can create art we could enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

The singularity I specifically focused on was the idea that AI would become more intelligent and keep growing said intelligence. The links to the other two fields could be seen through this project. The virtual reality and art could be created through AI instead of needing a person to create it all. This means there would be no limit to what the AI created unlink humans trying to make realistic environments. This can be seen in Deep Dream by Google. This is a platform where you transform pictures into algorithms. Google states that it is already able to use its own knowledge to create its own form of painting to the uploaded images. Margaret A. Boden states that “creativity is a fundamental feature of human intelligence” (Boden, 1998). This means to me that there is no way to get the AI to create something that needs to abide by human’s regulations of how we expect things to be seen, such as a desert being orange or sky being blue. The AI has no clue what these mean to us and would need programming to understand human made conventions/limits.

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

Alexander Mordvintsev, C. O. (2015, June 13). Inceptionism: Going Deeper into Neural Networks . Retrieved from Google Research Blog: https://research.googleblog.com/2015/06/inceptionism-going-deeper-into-neural.html

Beilenson, J. N. (2009). Virtual Reality. Stanford: Hogrefe Publishing.

Boden, M. A. (1998). Creativity and artificial intelligence. Sussex: Elsevier.

Misra, A. (2017). Development of a virtual reality training cirriculum for laparoscopic cholecystectomy. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Prescott, T. J. (2013). The AI Singularity and Runaway Human Intelligence. In T. J. Prescott, Lecure Notes in Computer Science Vol 8064 (pp. 438-440). Berlin.

Schulz, K.-P. (2017). Enabling Sustainable development in healthcare through art-based meditation. Elsevier.