Meta Theory v4 (aka Right Under Our Noses)

[Lawrence Meyers]

[As inspired by all contributions from The One, filtered through copious amount of alcohol, and an incessant need to find order in a chaotic universe where TV characters vanish from elevators leaving their clothes behind]

Lost in the mountain of information, drama, and artsy-fartsy statues and paintings was the mention of the paper, “A Theory of Specular Surface Geometry”[http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/CAVE/publications/pdfs/Oren_IJCV96.pdf]. I had to read this shit and, worse, you must read through my explanation. So I’ll try to hit the highlights as I understand them (poorly), as they provide an analogy for what is going on.

I think.

“When an observer moves in three-dimensional space, real scene features such as surface markings remain stationary with respect to the surfaces they belong to.”

Draw an “X” on a wall. As you move around the room, the “X” will appear to remain stationary, because it does. It also remains stationary with respect to the surface it belongs to [the wall]. There’s no illusion. What you see is what you get.

“In contrast, a virtual feature, which is the specular reflection of a real feature, travels on the surface”

Place a reflective surface of some kind on the floor. The “X” will reflect in that surface. HOWEVER, as you move around the room, the “X” will appear to travel around that reflective surface. The “X” is not a real feature of that surface — it’s a virtual feature, a reflection. Also, if you remain stationary but the reflective surface moves, the “X” will also appear to move.

A curious thing happens with our perception of the “X” depending on the shape of the reflective surface. Suppose the reflective surface is a sphere. If I stand, say, 30 degrees off the direct line from the “X on the wall and sphere, and Meghan stands 30 degrees off the same line on the other side, neither of us would perceive the “X” to be where we would expect it to be on the sphere. Instead, it would appear to be part-way between the surface of the sphere and its center (“an erroneous depth estimate”). Even if we each narrow the angle, the same thing will occur.

“These examples illustrate that current vision algorithms that were designed to handle only real features fail for specular objects.”

i.e. If you try to make a robot to approximate a human being, it won’t work. The more an observer examines it, the more obvious it is a specular reflection, a copy.

“Therefore, a technique that determines whether a feature is real or virtual is clearly desirable”.

i.e. An algorithm must be created to refine this robot copy.

“The fundamental difference between real and virtual features raises two questions: First, what geometric information is contained in virtual features? Second, how can virtual features be exploited to recover shapes of specular surfaces?”

i.e. What generic basic concrete info about people can be programmed into a robot? but what else? How can that stuff be further extrapolated to get closer to making a robot a real person?

“It is clear that virtual features in a single image do not reveal sufficient informa- tion. Hence, we pursue an active approach where the observer (sensor) moves along a known trajectory in the scene. Image features are tracked through the acquired image sequence. It turns out that even for a moving observer, exploitation of virtual features is a difficult problem.”

The scientists in the paper conduct experiments in 2 and 3 dimensions. If I understand, they continually refine their algorithms to the point “when virtual features can be tracked with precision, caustics and surface profiles can be computed with high accuracy….We showed that even when the positions of the reflected scene features are unknown, and no point on the profile is given, the profile can be uniquely reconstructed and the feature directions determined”.

i.e. Enough information exists that algorithms can be continually refined to more closely approximate humans.

What the fuck does this mean for the narrative?

That all this talk of Shadow people is correct. That everything we have seen has been the refining of algorithms to recapture what the OOA/Tension collected from us in order to create virtual people…but in three-dimensions.

With a focus on things we lust after.

Consider:
The multiple photos taken of @taysavestheday.
Sarah’s comment regarding Julie’s face.
The tests given in the focus group.
Forcing us into choices about choosing each other to go to events.
5/1 interviews
Multiple references to “IT”
The incessant focus on us, as a group, the core data sample.

The goal?

Westworld. For real. How do you think all those robots got created to be so life-like? We never really learned in the show but it had to start somewhere, and it was constantly refined. Look at the applications for this creation. The potential for power. For revenue. To manipulate world events in ever more effective ways.

But as with Westworld, there is the fundamental question of how to replicate HUMANITY. That unique stuff that makes us human.

[Aside: I sent a note to Sarah after the focus group, intimating that I knew what those tests lacked and why that data was disappointing. It failed to capture anyone’s humanity, though I never said this]

What OSDM never anticipated was the humanity we found in Sabrina, and how we locked into that. The whole thing blew up because Sabrina recovered her humanity. Now it seems some third party wants to take all that data, refine the algorithms, and continue the work, and try to find the core of what “Humanity” means….through the things we lust after.

To which I therefore predict:
1) What we saw at the iConfidant event was not “our” Sabrina. I bet it’s a prototype. To resurrect what we all hooked into.
2) As foreshadowed at the book signing, our beloved characters will return as doppelgängers. Specular reflections, if you will.
3) We are all caught in OBJECT ORIENTED ANALYSIS. How much longer do I have to repeat myself?

Ourobros

Becoming whole. Not just us, as individuals, as something to strive for. But for the Robots. That is the goal. For them to become real and whole.

Plato’s Cave

Alas. We remain chained inside, entertained by the puppet masters, constantly failing to see what we are being TOLD is nothing but shadows.

So ends this evening’s masturbatory rant. I will commence the cleaning of the specular surface and wish you all…pleasant dreams.

BEEP BLOOP BLEEP

[Megan]

What we saw at the iConfidant event was not “our” Sabrina. I bet it’s a prototype. To resurrect what we all hooked into.

Which is akin to what I said yesterday.

Also Larry you’re reminding me of the uncanny valley hypothesis – the sudden dip in positive reactions of people towards a robot as it becomes more and more human-like. So, if you think of the process of developing robots/virtual/artificial life is a continuous line moving towards something more and more actually lifelike (think video games from the 80s vs 90s vs today), our reactions to that trend positively/empathetically – oh look it’s closer to being human – but only until a point. At some point, for various reasons, our positive reactions turn to revulsion. As the AI becomes indistinguishable from human the reaction returns to positive/empathetic. That point between “not quite human but almost” and “absolutely indistinguishable from human” is the uncanny valley.

So has Sarah or Stacey or the Investors figured out how to move past this point and create “shadows” that are fully convincing?

Despite years spent as a code monkey I don’t fully understand object oriented analysis (I sucked as a code monkey) – but I love the anagram parallel.

And (maybe you’re saying this too and I’m just not reading it right) are they simply collecting data on what we lust after, or conducting experiments on us? Because I’m not convinced this whole thing is simply data collection. We keep using that phrase and data collection is done every day in a very passive way. We give up data willingly while we play stupid internet games and suddenly elections are swayed (Cambridge Analytica). With a lot of what we’ve seen in Lust – i.e. making us choose between ourselves or our friends, making Taylor choose between heart/head, friends/ambition, – there seems to be more of a potentially devastating emotional setup. To my thinking that goes beyond “data collection” and into the realm of experimentation, with us as disposable lab rats.

[Shaun]

I love the theories!

I’m still stuck on two things (mostly described here):

1) “The End” of Tension where it was implied that OSDM used their influence on people to sway the presidential election

2) Noah’s rant about IT as a duplicate of him, farms, and his other posts about AI songs using Flow Machine technology which can mimic specific artists.

I gravitate to the end goal being world domination via control be it literal (via AI robots) or implied (via manipulating human emotion).

[Author]

Posts