AI is usually a drive for good. Hear me out. We noticed proof at Google I/O 2023.
Whereas many people spend time worrying about how synthetic intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT would possibly take our jobs or set off World Warfare II, AI-based options are fixing real-world issues, and typically, even serving to individuals bounce again (and extra) from a tragedy.
After the Google I/O 2023 keynote completed blasting us with spectacular AI-based product and software program updates and a group of recent {hardware} that features the thrilling Google Pixel Fold, Pixel Pill, and Pixel 7a, Google AI Advocacy Lead, creator, and some-time AI artist Laurence Moroney (opens in new tab) took the stage throughout the developer’s keynote and introduced a narrative (opens in new tab) that in all probability prompted quite a lot of “I am not crying, you are crying” reactions within the viewers.
From the ashes
Two years in the past, quadriplegic recreation streamer Lance Carr misplaced the whole lot in a hearth, which really began throughout his livestream. Carr, who has muscular dystrophy, misplaced not simply his Colorado residence however all of the assistive tools he used to play video video games dwell on Twitch. Worse but, the customized tools was outdated and largely irreplaceable.
For Carr, who has no management of any a part of his physique under his shoulders, controlling his PC to play and stream video games can be inconceivable.
Google’s Undertaking GameFace, nonetheless, has modified all that. As an alternative of attempting to purchase and retrofit assistive gaming tools, Google and Carr settled on a novel concept: utilizing his face to manage his PC and the video games.
Based on Moroney, Undertaking GameFace makes use of an off-the-shelf webcam and Google’s MediaPipe, a system that ties collectively a number of AI ML fashions (he did not specify which of them) to construct a dwell mesh of 468 factors on any face. These factors are transformed into telemetry for mouse clicks and motion. MediaPipe has additionally beforehand been used to create digital avatars.
That is all tied to an interface the place you may map expressions and head motion to laptop enter, which implies as an alternative of one-size matches all, Undertaking GameFace could be personalized for the way you need to management the motion. And the system is so exact, Carr can use it to write down his first title in cursive.
As Carr notes, he is now controlling his laptop by making humorous faces. In a video on the undertaking, Carr defined that due to muscular dystrophy, he is weaker now than he was when he was a six-month-old. “Muscular dystrophy takes, this really added. The primary time I gained one thing in a bodily sense.”
Google has no plans to straight productize Undertaking GameFace, nevertheless it has open-sourced all of the code and posted it on GitHub (opens in new tab). The undertaking web page warns that the “undertaking just isn’t meant for human life-critical selections,” though what’s extra necessary than gaming? Ask our associates at TRG, and so they’ll inform you, “Nothing!”
The opposite bit of excellent information is that, whereas Undertaking GameFace is continually monitoring facial actions, it is not storing photos or any knowledge for facial recognition.
So, the subsequent time somebody tells you that the plain finish recreation of all AI is world destruction, pause for a second and take into consideration or possibly even point out Carr. The place there’s utility and goal, there are potentialities. In fact, AI has as a lot potential for good, because it does for hurt.
Perhaps we simply have to level it in the correct route. Perhaps.
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