Holograms and Alien Invasion

I never found technology creepy, but this really pushing it..

I kinda stumbled upon this subject and found it quite interesting in a few ways. A question between Fantasy and reality, something that have been on my mind for quite some time. The concept of the virtual artist Is, I think, as a phenomena kinda cool and all but I'm not sure really,
what do you think about it?

It is a little bit creepy to see such a huge audience almost worship a fictional character with a computer-generated voice and 3d-hologram body. ("3d-projector")

As a virtual idol, Hatsune Miku performed her first "live" concert during Animelo Summer Live at the Saitama Super Arena on August 22, 2009. Miku also performed her first overseas live concert on November 21, 2009, during Anime Festival Asia (AFA) in Singapore.[33][34] On March 9, 2010, Miku's first solo live performance titled "Miku no Hi Kanshasai 39's Giving Day" was opened at the Zepp Tokyo in Odaiba, Tokyo.
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Here are two examples of a "live"-concert not to long ago. There are many more in the related-video tab if you want to see more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UzuCVDZSv0 ミクの日感謝祭 / Miku 39's Giving Day HD - 3.ワールドイズマイン

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dd4HqNOA4U Double Lariat - Vocaloid - Hatsune Miku 39's Giving Day Concert


Some background and information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocaloid said:
Vocaloid

The Yamaha Corporation announced the Vocaloid technology for the first time at the German fair Musikmesse in March 2003.[3] The first Vocaloids, Leon and Lola, were released by the studio Zero-G on March 3, 2004, both of which were sold as a "Virtual Soul Vocalist". Leon and Lola made their first appearance at the NAMM Show on January 15, 2004.[4] Leon and Lola were also demonstrated at the Zero-G Limited booth during Wired Nextfest and won the 2005 Electronic Musician Editor's Choice Award.

Vocaloid 2

The first release based on the Vocaloid 2 engine came from PowerFX with Sweet Ann on June 29, 2007 whose boxart was based on a Frankenstein's monster.[15] This was closely followed by Crypton two months later with the first of their "Character Vocal Series", Hatsune Miku, on August 31, 2007. Zero-G's first Vocaloid, Prima, came out on January 14, 2008 with voice of a Soprano opera singer. Internet Co., Ltd. also joined the Vocaloid development with their first Vocaloid Gackpoid on July 31, 2008, whose voice was provided by Japanese international singer Gackt. Gackpoid includes a new program, OPUS Express, for mixing vocal parts with accompaniment or phoneme data.[16] AH Software later released their first Vocaloids on December 4, 2009 bringing the total of studios producing Vocaloids to five. As of the introduction of Bplats and Sony Music Entertainment in late 2010, there are seven studios involved with the production and distribution of Vocaloids with two involved solely in English, four solely in Japanese and one in both languages for which the software is developed.

Crypton Future Media released the first dual Vocaloid Kagamine Len and Kagamine Rin, a Japanese male and female. On July 18, 2008, Crypton Future Media released the updated edition of Kagamine Rin and Len, named "act2".[17] For a period of time, users who had bought the old version were allowed to get the new version for free. On June 18, 2008, beta demonstration songs using the new version were released on the company's official blog.[18] The expansion disc is an entirely different software and does not affect the original Kagamine Rin/Len installation in any way, giving the user options to either use the old or new voice sets exclusively or combine their usage. Crypton Future Media have now retired the sale of their old Kagamine Vocaloid and it is now no longer possible to buy the software from them.[19] This was also the very first Vocaloid update to be done for any Vocaloid.

On April 30, 2010, an updated version of Miku called Hatsune Miku Append was released containing a package of six different tones of Miku's voice: Soft (gentle, delicate voice), Sweet (young, chibi voice), Dark (mature, heartbroken-like voice), Vivid (bright, cheerful voice), Solid (loud, clear voice), and Light (innocent, heavenly voice).[20] This was the first time a Vocaloid has such a release and more Append are reported from Crypton Future Media at later dates.[21]

Yamaha also began to get involved with the sale and production of Vocaloid's themselves with Lily being the first; Lily was later sold via Internet Co., Ltd's website. Their involvement continued with the VY series, with VY1 Mizki being the first, released in deluxe and standard editions on September 1, 2010.[22] The VY series is a series designed to be a high quality product for professional musicians. The series is also designed with the intention to set a new standard for the Vocaloids for having no face, sex or set voice, but are designed to complete any song.[23] VY1 saw a new approach to how the software handled the database of samples and improved the performance of the Vocaloid 2 engine.

Other significant releases include Crypton's Megurine Luka, the first bilingual Vocaloid and Zero-G's Sonika who was developed to being able to speak any language, even though she is primarily an English vocalist. AH Software's Kaai Yuki became the first Vocaloid to use a child's voice. Two studios are known to work on franchise based Vocaloids. Internet Co., Ltd. released a Gachapin Vocaloid, "Gachapoid". AH-Software who published a Hello Kitty-based Vocaloid, "Nekomura Iroha", based on the Kittyler featured in the game Hello Kitty to Issho! Block Crash 123!! in cooperation with Sanrio. All such products are listed with the franchise name and "Vocaloid" on the packaging. Ah Software are also heading the first project led by producers working with the software.[24]

An edition of Sonika was released in Taiwan on August 1, 2010. Users can choose to use the original English or traditional Chinese interface, however it does not have a Chinese language input method or a Chinese singing voice. This is the first edition of Vocaloid software widely released to speakers of Chinese.[25][26][27] According to Crypton, a petition has been made on Facebook and if 39,390 members join Hatsune Miku's account, then an English version will be released.[28]

Vocaloid 3

Vocaloid 3 has been confirmed,[62] and is said to be aimed to be Yamaha's most "realistic voice engine yet.
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It show at least how easy it would be to fake someones voice via, say a cellphone in a airplane, or something like that.

Here is a program that is used for the voice, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcJDTDBWTrw (sorry no playlist, but you should watch them all to see and hear the process from the robotic voice in the beginning to the very nuanced "human" voice in the end)


With all that have been said about artificial intelligence taken together with the progress of robotic technology and other fields, I cant help but wonder were this will lead..
 
Yeah it's cool, but I'm thinking like you about the AI takeover. Those people are cheering for a computer! I got a strange feeling because of that, like something potentially sinister in the background. Thanks for sharing!
 
GRiM said:
I never found technology creepy, but this really pushing it..

I kinda stumbled upon this subject and found it quite interesting in a few ways. A question between Fantasy and reality, something that have been on my mind for quite some time. The concept of the virtual artist Is, I think, as a phenomena kinda cool and all but I'm not sure really,
what do you think about it?
Click to expand...

I've always been a fan of technology and following technological advancements. But considering all that's going on in the world right now, I'd say the current 'end product' of this technology is completely useless in productive terms - except maybe as a cultural experiment, to learn from audience feedback, how to improve the 'product' for more sinister purposes.

I could be wrong, of course. I just don't see it improving mankind's lot for the foreseeable future.

Thanks for sharing it. :)
 
While watching these videos, I was reminded of the couples whose real life babies starved to death while they were taking care of virtual babies, or playing virtual games. :( I see no good from these types of things except to keep the public busy with virtual living keeping them blind and uninterested in real life issues and what is really going on in the world.

Since Asia has not been dumbed down like the U.S., there has to be an alternate plan to keep them from asking questions and seeing the man behind the curtain.
 
Thx for the info GRiM

It is a little bit creepy to see such a huge audience almost worship a fictional character with a computer-generated voice and 3d-hologram body. ("3d-projector")
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Yes, they not only watch the show but seem very implicate. Would they elect an hologram to lead them one day ?

In spite of their advanced technology, they have problems to render a realistic lips synchronization :lol:
 
Ellipse said:
Thx for the info GRiM

It is a little bit creepy to see such a huge audience almost worship a fictional character with a computer-generated voice and 3d-hologram body. ("3d-projector")
Click to expand...
Yes, they not only watch the show but seem very implicate. Would they elect an hologram to lead them one day ?

In spite of their advanced technology, they have problems to render a realistic lips synchronization :lol:
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Well, if you take a look at this :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYgLFt5wfP4#t=0m58s
"Image Metrics Emily CG Facial Animation"



http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/movies/15waxm.html said:
Published: October 15, 2006
Cyberface: New Technology That Captures the Soul
(...)
It’s not just that the virtual woman looks happy when the actress looks happy or relieved when the actress looks relieved. It’s that the virtual woman actually seems to have adopted the actress’s personality, resembling her in ways that go beyond pursed lips or knitted brow. The avatar seems to possess something more subtle, more ineffable, something that seems to go beneath the skin. And it’s more than a little bit creepy.

“I like to call it soul transference,” said Andy Wood, the chairman of Image Metrics, who is not shy about proclaiming his company’s potential. “The model has the actress’s soul. It shows through.”
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Captures the Soul and soul transference :shock:

“We could put Marilyn Monroe alongside Jack Nicholson, or Jack Black, or Jack White,” he continued, seated in the conference room where the emoting actress and her avatar shared the screen. “If we want John Wayne to act alongside Angelina Jolie, we can do that. We can directly mimic the performance of a human being on a model. We can create new scenes for old films, or old scenes for new films. We can have one human being drive another human character.”
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Not to hard to understand why the C's say "They (4D) can manipulate all of third density" (paraphrasing the C's) seeing how we in 3D can alter quite a few things digitally.
 
Bud said:
But considering all that's going on in the world right now, I'd say the current 'end product' of this technology is completely useless in productive terms - except maybe as a cultural experiment, to learn from audience feedback, how to improve the 'product' for more sinister purposes.
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These were my thoughts as well. What would be its purpose?
As I see it, it is another tool to divert people's attention and even desensitize them to the fact that they are becoming more detached from life by adulating a fictional character.
I think that having an hologram pretending to be a real person, and an artist, is very telling. It reminds me of these popular movies from the 80s where the theme of virtual or robotic characters coexisted with normal human beings. These products of artificial intelligence are usually an enhanced version of what mainstream culture leads people to think are the positive attributes of a regular human being. Taking the example of the "artist" on stage, she would have the ideal physical attributes, a voice that does not miss a tone, she knows how to dance, doesn't miss a move and so on. So it is conducive to leading people into pursuing a shallow and unrealistic ideal of a human being.
I see it as part of a process of detaching people from what a normal person really is, leading them into looking for a flawless something that doesn't exist. It prevents us from looking for what we are and have, a creative being whose depth, if acknowledged, would surpass by far any of the fictitious characters that are looked up to.

I could be dramatizing this issue, but I think that it is steps such as this one that leads us further and further away from reality

Nienna Eluch said:
Since Asia has not been dumbed down like the U.S., there has to be an alternate plan to keep them from asking questions and seeing the man behind the curtain.
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Interestingly, Japan seems to show a preponderance to virtual life. They came up with the tamagotchi, the virtual pet, and they are very strong in anime which, on itself, would not seem to be a problem, wouldn't it be for the fact that these animated characters tend to be worshiped by the Japanese adult. It also reminds me of this post: http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=14103.msg108256#msg108256 where it is described how a Japanese man was launching an online petition campaign to allow him to marry the woman of his dreams....a fictitious anime character.

I think that having a fictitious character pretending to be an artist, is one more tool to lead people, such as he man described above, to eventually become so detached from reality that looking up to something that isn't real, but pretends to be real, becomes the norm.

GRiM said:
Not to hard to understand why the C's say "They (4D) can manipulate all of third density" (paraphrasing the C's) seeing how we in 3D can alter quite a few things digitally.
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True. It seems that we're merely perpetuating the same pattern of manipulating life, and even forcing "life" into lifeless objects.

Edit: fixed typo
 
Just noticed that SOTT net also has an article on the subject. :)

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/217778-J-Pop-Star-and-3-D-Hologram-Hatsune-Miku-Sells-Out-Stadiums
 
Not to hard to understand why the C's say "They (4D) can manipulate all of third density" (paraphrasing the C's) seeing how we in 3D can alter quite a few things digitally.
Click to expand...

Yes, we just begin to mimic 3D, the C's say they can mimic the aura, the electromagnetic field, etc... of a body. Living in a world with such "being" is certainly very strange and disturbing.
Oh, someone tell me this is perhaps already the world we are living in... :(
 
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