e503 — Death Watch

Photo by Amr Taha™ on Unsplash Published 3 March 2025 e503 with Andy, Michael and Michael – stories and discussion on the #DeadInternet, #AI, #recipes, #crowdsourcing #VR, #VirtualWorldsMuseum, #watches such as the #Pixel3, #CasioRingWatch and much more. Andy, Michael and Michael get things started off with a couple of detailed articles on the state of AI.  They focus first on a post outlining on how historical records could be changed, using the example of PhysicsForums where backdated posts have appeared.  This leads to a conversation on human creativity and community, with examples from music and film.  A Techdirt article continues on this theme, featuring the technique dubbed SNARF, an acronym for “stakes, novelty, anger, retention and fear” used in the attention economy.  After these deep discussions, the team turns to Ed Ross’ AI created game called “Solterra Guardians” as a practical example of what can be done with AI at speed, which harkens back to episode 458 detailing an example of an AI that creates a full fledged websites from a prompt. In the AR and VR space, Andy, Michael and Michael touch on Niantic’s Into the Scaniverse app for the Meta Quest 3 and 3S VR headsets.  Content for this can be created by people with the Scaniverse app to record their experiences.  Curation and recording of the multitude of metaverse experiences is the goal of the Virtual Worlds Museum – a kickstarter aiming to reach it’s funding goal in March 2025.  This reminds the team of the OpenSimulator project for flexibility for navigation and portability between virtual worlds.