7 ms·

> they have managed to reduce the required bandwidth for a video call by an order of magnitude. In one example, the required data rate fell from 97.28 KB/frame

> they have managed to reduce the required bandwidth for a video call by an order of magnitude. In one example, the required data rate fell from 97.28 KB/frame to a measly 0.1165 KB/frame – a reduction to 0.1% of required bandwidth. A nitpick, perhaps, but isn't that three orders of magnitude? We've already seen people use outlandish backgrounds in calls, now it's going to be possible to design similar outlandish views, but actually be this new invention in real time. There's been a lot of discussion centered around deep fakes and its problems, this is essentially deep faking yourself into whatever you want. Video calls are a very important form of communication at the moment, if this becomes as accepted as background modification, that would open the societal door to a whole range of self presentation that up till now was restricted to in game virtual characters. I wonder what kind of implications that could have. Would people come to identify themselves strongly with a virtual avatar, perhaps stronger than their real life "avatar"? It is an awesome freedom to have, to remake yourself.

irthomasthomas 6y ago
David Foster Wallace predicted this in his novel Infinite Jest. Except they where static images inserted over a video phone, and the user had to keep their head positioned just right to make them work.
EricMausler 6y ago
"Its just easier to apply the <deep fake of myself> than it is to apply foundation. Its how I'd look anyway" - delusional early adopters probably
maitredusoi 6y ago
>Video calls are a very important form of communication at the moment, if this becomes as accepted as background modification, that would open the societal door to a whole range of self presentation that up till now was restricted to in game virtual characters. Thanks for that comment. Can't wait for it to happen !
zimpenfish 6y ago
> A nitpick, perhaps, but isn't that three orders of magnitude? I dunno that I'd call it three orders - it's close at about 830x - but it's definitely not even close to being one order either.
- colechristensen 6y ago
  I think it’s an unnecessary nitpick. One statement is general and the other is a specific, extreme example. “usually 10x, sometimes 1000x”, that sort of thing
- m463 6y ago
  I think it is three orders of magnitude. "An order-of-magnitude difference between two values is a factor of 10. For example, the mass of the planet Saturn is 95 times that of Earth, so Saturn is two orders of magnitude more massive than Earth." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_magnitude https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_magnitude
  - zimpenfish 6y ago
    > "More precisely, the order of magnitude of a number can be defined in terms of the common logarithm, usually as the integer part of the logarithm, obtained by truncation." $ bc -l l(835)/l(10) 2.92168647548360208478 That would make it 2 orders of magnitude by that method. Happy to accept that it's 3 orders of magnitude by the N=a*10^b method though. Either way, it's definitely not one.
    - m463 6y ago
      I think the whole point of orders of magnitude is to be a back-of-the-napkin estimation of what's what. "a new car is an order of magnitude difference in price compared to a used car" is appropriate even if a new car is 40k and a used car is 5k Electric cars have two orders of magnitude less energy storage than gasoline cars, but newer ones are only one order of magnitude.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
retsibsi 6y ago
> A nitpick, perhaps, but isn't that three orders of magnitude? Perhaps the example was a best-case, and the usual improvement is about 10x. (That or 'order of magnitude' has gone the way of 'exponential' in popular use. I don't think I've noticed that elsewhere, though.)
skriticos2 6y ago
I imagine people in home office situations would like to use this not only for the background, but them-self. I mean, if you are in doors all day, you might not be perfectly groomed for the day - so faking that would probably appeal to many people.
TuringNYC 6y ago
You just need to connect GPT3, and the dialogue is taken care of. Lyrebird’s API will take care of the speech synthesis. Viola! My deep fake can stand in at meetings now while I code.
- ipsum2 6y ago
  But who's playing the viola?
  - TuringNYC 6y ago
    Sorry, misspelled Voila!
- sriksa 6y ago
  Imagine if everyone did that
  - ada1981 6y ago
    Reminds me of this classic montage from Real Genius. https://youtu.be/wB1X4o-MV6o https://youtu.be/wB1X4o-MV6o
  - Cybiote 6y ago
    This is one of the themes brilliantly explored (in my opinion), in the (largely hard) scifi book "Lady of Mazes" by Karl Schroeder.
  - isoprophlex 6y ago
    I posit that no productivity would be lost. Just have a summarizing AI email you the outcomes.
    - Zancarius 6y ago
      Hello, isoprophlex, I'm your Assistant AI Today's meeting was an hour-and-a-half spent on bike-shedding the position--and color--of the "logout" button on our product page. 15 minutes were spent debating the resident usability expert who suggested white text on a dark blue background would be more readable for people with low vision. The department manager insisted on retaining pastel blue as it is his favorite color. 45 minutes were spent arguing over whether "logout" or "log out" comprises proper semantics. Our linguistic expert was unfortunately not able to attend as she was sent on a business trip earlier in the week. The last 30 minutes were focused on team-building exercises as Bob doodled on his tablet and Susan smiled politely at the speaker whilst screaming internally as she had 3 more meetings to attend before her department could move forward.
rhn_mk1 6y ago
The avatar thing isn't one-sided either: it'd be an awesome power to have to remake others! Real-time silly hats for people I talk to and I'm sold.
- dweekly 6y ago
  "Visualize your audience naked." they said. "Helps calm the nerves." They had no idea.
  - EricMausler 6y ago
    When there's a will there's a way
throwaway316943 6y ago
My prediction is that people will just change their avatars as often as they change their personal fashion. For some that’s never and for others it’s every season or even more often.
rasz 6y ago
>isn't that three orders of magnitude? sure is .. if you stream your face at >30-50Mbit/s. For contrast highest bitrate available on Twitch, used for streaming high motion full screen updating twitchy 1080@60 gaming, is ~6-8Mbit/s.
overfitted 6y ago
I think the ability to, as someone mentioned it, have yourself look a bit tidier than you actually are (working from home) could be a huge benifit. I mean taking away focus on things that doesn't matter in a virtual meeting such as: Where you are sitting - via Virtual Background Your daily hair style status or if you have a nose pimple - Via NVIDIAs AI showcased here. Would be great. Though replacing yourself with a "digital" avatar I think takes away many of the benefits an actual live meeting provides.
- kadoban 6y ago
  It depends on how accurately the avatar is able to represent important information: emotion, attention, state of mind, etc. There's a lot of bandwidth in looking at a face (and bodylanguage as well), that's where the value in face-to-face meetings is.
polytely 6y ago
I think you are right on the money with your thoughts on virtual avatars. I've already noticed this phenomenon cropping up in some niches. 1. the phenomenon of VTubers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_YouTuber https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_YouTuber 2. in the virtual animal crossing late night show, Animal Talking, the presenter's (Gary Whitta) avatar doesn't really resemble how the presenter looks in real life https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Talking_with_Gary_Whitta https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Talking_with_Gary_Whi... 3. I watch a lot of interview s with people in VR Chat and it's very interesting how people seem to find it easier(?) to open up while they are embodying a character. https://youtu.be/KZWOXgc7PA4 https://youtu.be/KZWOXgc7PA4 Being able to experiment with identity in this way is really interesting to me, and I hope it becomes more mainstream with the proliferation of this technology
- godelski 6y ago
  I'm reminded of Permutation City where they talk to one another with virtual avatars that are able to mask emotional responses and such.
- dhyreueu 6y ago
  There's a Webtoon (it's okay but not great) that had a premise I think will turn out to be precient and reminds me of your last bit. The gist is that it's a future where everyone wears vr goggles. As a result, the teens in the comic all have personalized visuals mapped to their bodies that you can see if you also have your goggle's on when you look at them. The cooler kids even have full blown avatars that cover up their entire body and make them look like everything from aliens to elves.
- cordite 6y ago
  This sounds a lot like the movie Surrogates, where at one point the protagonist notices the badge of a android surrogate is completely different from the human behind the surrogate (as printed on the badge).
- gdubs 6y ago
  Jaron Lanier’s book on VR went in-depth on the importance of avatars, and experiences people had embodying different avatars — particularly in the early days of first-wave VR.
no_one_ever 6y ago
As these trends sort of become more and more prevalent, I am so shocked at how David Foster Wallace had nailed this prediction in his book Infinite Jest. Humans becoming more and more dependent on virtual face-to-face meetings and also relying on embellishment of their supposed appearance through the screen. It reminds me of how SciFi authors predicted technology, but with a complimentary commentary on human psychology. Sorry if it isn't directly related to the post, but it is so striking to me.
xboxnolifes 6y ago
It's possible that the "order of magnitude" statement was the majority case, and the 0.1% statement was a best case scenario. So, 1 magnitude is to be expected, but 3 is possible.
Ironlikebike 6y ago
This reminds me of a sci-fi novel I read in the nineties. The premise had something to do with actors who took on roles in virtual reality where their bodies are fit with sense-points. They're cast in live-action role-plays with wealthy remote clients. They're basically deep-fakes in VR.
- Crespyl 6y ago
  Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age had an element like that. It was even possible that the actors ("ractors") didn't necessarily know what they were acting in, just the general parameters and the next set of lines and actions necessary to continue the performance.

irthomasthomas 6y ago

David Foster Wallace predicted this in his novel Infinite Jest. Except they where static images inserted over a video phone, and the user had to keep their head positioned just right to make them work.

EricMausler 6y ago

"Its just easier to apply the <deep fake of myself> than it is to apply foundation. Its how I'd look anyway" - delusional early adopters probably

maitredusoi 6y ago

>Video calls are a very important form of communication at the moment, if this becomes as accepted as background modification, that would open the societal door to a whole range of self presentation that up till now was restricted to in game virtual characters. Thanks for that comment. Can't wait for it to happen !

zimpenfish 6y ago

> A nitpick, perhaps, but isn't that three orders of magnitude? I dunno that I'd call it three orders - it's close at about 830x - but it's definitely not even close to being one order either.

colechristensen 6y ago
I think it’s an unnecessary nitpick. One statement is general and the other is a specific, extreme example. “usually 10x, sometimes 1000x”, that sort of thing
m463 6y ago
I think it is three orders of magnitude. "An order-of-magnitude difference between two values is a factor of 10. For example, the mass of the planet Saturn is 95 times that of Earth, so Saturn is two orders of magnitude more massive than Earth." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_magnitude https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_magnitude
- zimpenfish 6y ago
  > "More precisely, the order of magnitude of a number can be defined in terms of the common logarithm, usually as the integer part of the logarithm, obtained by truncation." $ bc -l l(835)/l(10) 2.92168647548360208478 That would make it 2 orders of magnitude by that method. Happy to accept that it's 3 orders of magnitude by the N=a*10^b method though. Either way, it's definitely not one.
  - m463 6y ago
    I think the whole point of orders of magnitude is to be a back-of-the-napkin estimation of what's what. "a new car is an order of magnitude difference in price compared to a used car" is appropriate even if a new car is 40k and a used car is 5k Electric cars have two orders of magnitude less energy storage than gasoline cars, but newer ones are only one order of magnitude.
dragonwriter 6y ago

retsibsi 6y ago

> A nitpick, perhaps, but isn't that three orders of magnitude? Perhaps the example was a best-case, and the usual improvement is about 10x. (That or 'order of magnitude' has gone the way of 'exponential' in popular use. I don't think I've noticed that elsewhere, though.)

skriticos2 6y ago

I imagine people in home office situations would like to use this not only for the background, but them-self. I mean, if you are in doors all day, you might not be perfectly groomed for the day - so faking that would probably appeal to many people.

TuringNYC 6y ago

You just need to connect GPT3, and the dialogue is taken care of. Lyrebird’s API will take care of the speech synthesis. Viola! My deep fake can stand in at meetings now while I code.

ipsum2 6y ago
But who's playing the viola?
- TuringNYC 6y ago
  Sorry, misspelled Voila!
sriksa 6y ago
Imagine if everyone did that
- ada1981 6y ago
  Reminds me of this classic montage from Real Genius. https://youtu.be/wB1X4o-MV6o https://youtu.be/wB1X4o-MV6o
- Cybiote 6y ago
  This is one of the themes brilliantly explored (in my opinion), in the (largely hard) scifi book "Lady of Mazes" by Karl Schroeder.
- isoprophlex 6y ago
  I posit that no productivity would be lost. Just have a summarizing AI email you the outcomes.
  - Zancarius 6y ago
    Hello, isoprophlex, I'm your Assistant AI Today's meeting was an hour-and-a-half spent on bike-shedding the position--and color--of the "logout" button on our product page. 15 minutes were spent debating the resident usability expert who suggested white text on a dark blue background would be more readable for people with low vision. The department manager insisted on retaining pastel blue as it is his favorite color. 45 minutes were spent arguing over whether "logout" or "log out" comprises proper semantics. Our linguistic expert was unfortunately not able to attend as she was sent on a business trip earlier in the week. The last 30 minutes were focused on team-building exercises as Bob doodled on his tablet and Susan smiled politely at the speaker whilst screaming internally as she had 3 more meetings to attend before her department could move forward.

rhn_mk1 6y ago

The avatar thing isn't one-sided either: it'd be an awesome power to have to remake others! Real-time silly hats for people I talk to and I'm sold.

dweekly 6y ago
"Visualize your audience naked." they said. "Helps calm the nerves." They had no idea.
- EricMausler 6y ago
  When there's a will there's a way

throwaway316943 6y ago

My prediction is that people will just change their avatars as often as they change their personal fashion. For some that’s never and for others it’s every season or even more often.

rasz 6y ago

>isn't that three orders of magnitude? sure is .. if you stream your face at >30-50Mbit/s. For contrast highest bitrate available on Twitch, used for streaming high motion full screen updating twitchy 1080@60 gaming, is ~6-8Mbit/s.

overfitted 6y ago

I think the ability to, as someone mentioned it, have yourself look a bit tidier than you actually are (working from home) could be a huge benifit. I mean taking away focus on things that doesn't matter in a virtual meeting such as: Where you are sitting - via Virtual Background Your daily hair style status or if you have a nose pimple - Via NVIDIAs AI showcased here. Would be great. Though replacing yourself with a "digital" avatar I think takes away many of the benefits an actual live meeting provides.

kadoban 6y ago
It depends on how accurately the avatar is able to represent important information: emotion, attention, state of mind, etc. There's a lot of bandwidth in looking at a face (and bodylanguage as well), that's where the value in face-to-face meetings is.

polytely 6y ago

I think you are right on the money with your thoughts on virtual avatars. I've already noticed this phenomenon cropping up in some niches. 1. the phenomenon of VTubers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_YouTuber https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_YouTuber 2. in the virtual animal crossing late night show, Animal Talking, the presenter's (Gary Whitta) avatar doesn't really resemble how the presenter looks in real life https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Talking_with_Gary_Whitta https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Talking_with_Gary_Whi... 3. I watch a lot of interview s with people in VR Chat and it's very interesting how people seem to find it easier(?) to open up while they are embodying a character. https://youtu.be/KZWOXgc7PA4 https://youtu.be/KZWOXgc7PA4 Being able to experiment with identity in this way is really interesting to me, and I hope it becomes more mainstream with the proliferation of this technology

godelski 6y ago
I'm reminded of Permutation City where they talk to one another with virtual avatars that are able to mask emotional responses and such.
dhyreueu 6y ago
There's a Webtoon (it's okay but not great) that had a premise I think will turn out to be precient and reminds me of your last bit. The gist is that it's a future where everyone wears vr goggles. As a result, the teens in the comic all have personalized visuals mapped to their bodies that you can see if you also have your goggle's on when you look at them. The cooler kids even have full blown avatars that cover up their entire body and make them look like everything from aliens to elves.
cordite 6y ago
This sounds a lot like the movie Surrogates, where at one point the protagonist notices the badge of a android surrogate is completely different from the human behind the surrogate (as printed on the badge).
gdubs 6y ago
Jaron Lanier’s book on VR went in-depth on the importance of avatars, and experiences people had embodying different avatars — particularly in the early days of first-wave VR.

no_one_ever 6y ago

As these trends sort of become more and more prevalent, I am so shocked at how David Foster Wallace had nailed this prediction in his book Infinite Jest. Humans becoming more and more dependent on virtual face-to-face meetings and also relying on embellishment of their supposed appearance through the screen. It reminds me of how SciFi authors predicted technology, but with a complimentary commentary on human psychology. Sorry if it isn't directly related to the post, but it is so striking to me.

xboxnolifes 6y ago

It's possible that the "order of magnitude" statement was the majority case, and the 0.1% statement was a best case scenario. So, 1 magnitude is to be expected, but 3 is possible.

Ironlikebike 6y ago

This reminds me of a sci-fi novel I read in the nineties. The premise had something to do with actors who took on roles in virtual reality where their bodies are fit with sense-points. They're cast in live-action role-plays with wealthy remote clients. They're basically deep-fakes in VR.

Crespyl 6y ago
Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age had an element like that. It was even possible that the actors ("ractors") didn't necessarily know what they were acting in, just the general parameters and the next set of lines and actions necessary to continue the performance.