"This week in the ➡️ #Metaverse" #44
September 13, 2023
"This week in the ➡️ #Metaverse" #44
Your weekly roundup of the relevant trends, regulatory developments and policy insights, about the metaverse, AI, crypto, neurotech, and gaming.
😩I’m exhausted, just give me “the weekly snapshot”:
Here we go!
Roblox is pushing boundaries, betting big on AI to revolutionize virtual worlds and avatar animations, but not without stepping into the tricky terrain of real-time voice moderation. Meanwhile, EU lists 6 tech giants that need to play by new rules, and surprise - they're mostly our usual suspects! 🧐 Also troubles ahead for Google in the US, with the biggest monopoly game since the epic Microsoft case. Speaking of the devil, Microsoft promises they got your back (and potential copyright lawsuits) with Copilot. And as we grapple with AI's thirst (literally, Microsoft's AI is guzzling water like there's no tomorrow), we're also faced with Coca-Cola’s mysterious AI flavor.And remember: while tech giants push for AI regulation, they might just be playing the long game to secure their dominance
So, gear up, and let's dive deeper into the metaverse! 🚀🧠🕹️
👁️🗨️Now the full version, what's going on:
👀 => Roblox’s new AI tools will help build virtual worlds, animate avatars and will moderate voice communication
With the Roblox Assistant, creators will be able to type in prompts to do things like generate virtual environments, assets or code with the help of generative AI.
Roblox aims to simplify avatar creation by “training AI models on Roblox’s avatar schema and a set of Roblox-owned 3D avatar models. One approach leverages research for generating 3D stylized avatars from 2D images”.
They are working on “using ControlNet to layer in predefined poses to guide the resulting multi-view images of the avatars”, produce a 3D mesh for the avatar, and adjust it to add appropriate facial features, caging, rigging, and textures, making the static 3D mesh into a Roblox avatar.
Importantly, as Roblox begins to roll out new voice features (including voice chat and Roblox Connect), the enviroment faces the challenge to “moderate spoken language in real time”.
For doing so, they are “building a pipeline that goes directly from the live audio to labeling content to indicate whether it violates our policies or not”.
The interesting approachs is how Roblox is looking into moderation within context, not just a list of banned words. They aim to deploy tools to understand “these types of violations involve what you’re saying, how you’re saying it, and the context in which the statements are made”.
More on => blog.roblox.com
EU confirms 6 (mostly US) tech giants are subject to Digital Markets Act
DMA takes a proactive approach to competition concern once a certain threshold of market power is achieved. Within those terms, the Commission named Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta and Microsoft.
It named 22 core platform services operated by them, as pointed out by TechCrunch, it includes
4 social networks = TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn
6 “intermediation” services = Google Maps, Google Play, Google Shopping, Amazon Marketplace, iOS App Store, Meta Marketplace
3 ads delivery systems (ADS) = Google, Amazon and Meta
2 browsers = Chrome, Safari
3 operating systems = Google Android, iOS, Windows PC OS
2 N-IICS, Number-Independent Interpersonal Communication Service = WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger
1 search engine = Google
1 video sharing platform = YouTube
Animoca Brands Raises $20M for Metaverse Project Mocaverse
Animoca's aim is for Mocaverse to provide Web3-native tools for users to build gaming and other entertainment products. One such product under development is Moca ID, a non-fungible token (NFT) collection designed to allow users to craft on-chain identities in order to participate in the Mocaverse ecosystem.
More on => mixed-news.com
Metaverse is dead in the West, but ‘so hot' in Asia
Sandbox co-founder Sebastien Borget says the metaverse sector is thriving in Hong Kong, Korea and Japan.
More on => cointelegraph.com
Also, aligned with that statment, China wants metaverse firms with ‘global influence’ and plans for up to 5 industrial clusters by 2025
iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are the first Apple smartphones to capture spatial videos for Apple Vision Pro.
More on => mixed-news.com
Google faces the DOJ in the first major tech monopoly trial since Microsoft
the DOJ will make their case to a D.C. District Court judge for why Google
has allegedly violated anti-monopoly law through exclusive agreements with mobile phone manufacturers and browser makers to make its search engine the default for consumers
Google faced recently major fines over its competitive practices in Europe, and months after it wraps arguments in the search trial, it’s set to face a second challenge from the DOJ in the Eastern District of Virginia over its advertising technology business
More on => cnbc.com
🤖I Am Not A Robot: AI news
Microsoft says it will take the heat if Copilot AI commercial users get sued for copyright infringement.
In a blog post about an initiative called the Copilot Copyright Commitment, the company said the company will assume responsibility for the potential legal risks involved.
If a third party sues a commercial customer for copyright infringement for using Microsoft’s Copilots or the output they generate, we will defend the customer and pay the amount of any adverse judgments or settlements that result from the lawsuit, as long as the customer used the guardrails and content filters we have built into our products.
More on => theverge.com
Meta sets GPT-4 as the bar for its next AI model
Meta has been snapping up AI training chips and building out data centers in order to create a more powerful new chatbot it hopes will be as sophisticated as OpenAI’s GPT-4
More on => theverge.com
Google will require political ads 'prominently disclose' their AI-generated aspects
Small and inconsequential edits like resizing images, minor cleanup to the background or color correction will all still be allowed — those that depict people or things doing stuff that they never actually did or those that otherwise alter actual footage will be flagged.
More on => engadget.com
A.I. tools fueled a 34% spike in Microsoft’s water consumption, and one city with its data centers is concerned about the effect on residential supply
In its latest environmental report, Microsoft disclosed that its global water consumption spiked 34% from 2021 to 2022 (to nearly 1.7 billion gallons, or more than 2,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools), a sharp increase compared to previous years that outside researchers tie to its AI research.
In a paper due to be published later this year a researcher at the University of California, Riverside who has been trying to calculate the environmental impact of generative AI products, estimates that ChatGPT gulps up 500 milliliters of water (close to what’s in a 16-ounce water bottle) every time you ask it a series of between 5 to 50 prompts or questions.
More on => fortune.com
New physics-based self-learning machines could replace current artificial neural networks and save energy
Two scientists at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen, Germany, present a method by which artificial intelligence could be trained much more efficiently. Their approach relies on physical processes instead of the digital artificial neural networks currently used. The work is published in the journal Physical Review X.
More on => techxplore.com
🤦The WTF award of the week goes to…
Coca-Cola embraces controversial AI image generator with new “Y3000” flavor
More on => arstechnica.com
🎮Gaming news
Japanese YouTuber convicted of copyright violation after uploading Let’s Play videos
More on => theverge.com
💸CryptoLand:
PayPal Introduces On and Off Ramps for Web3 Payments
More on => newsroompaypal.com
DeFi group petitions to stop ‘patent troll’ targeting DeFi protocols
The DeFi Education Fund says a patent owned by True Return Systems is being used to try to profit from lawsuits against decentralized protocols.
More on => cointelegraph.com
🧠Neurotech:
Memory in Touch: Fingertips Recall Past Forces
The viscoelastic nature of fingertips means that deformations from forces last longer than the actual force, affecting the information relayed to the brain by tactile neurons
Tactile information about the recent physical state of the skin may help the brain to formulate accurate motor commands to control the hands in object manipulation and haptic tasks.
More on =>neursciencenews.com
AI-Powered ‘Thought Decoders’ Won’t Just Read Your Mind—They’ll Change It
More on => wired.com
😬Meme corner:
✍️Ending nugget:
“Regulatory capture could easily be the outcome of AI. One might have skepticism that mega tech companies like Google are pushing for regulation. It would be a smart strategic move for these companies to ask for regulation since they have massive financial resources to support policy research and lobbying efforts. For example, one proposal is to create a federal agency for AI and to enact licensing requirements for new systems. While this seems reasonable, it could lead to regulatory capture.
Most likely, these mega-tech companies will have considerable influence on the regulation process. The licensing could make it difficult for smaller companies to comply because of the costs. There would be a “revolving door” for the AI agency, where regulators will often wind up getting lucrative jobs with these firms. This will reinforce the grip on power for the large tech companies.
"AI Regulation: Why It's Already Going Off The Rails" Muddu Sudhakar
That’s all for now!To continue the conversation, find me at https://linktr.ee/abogamer. And if you want to support my work, please consider sharing this newsletter!!