Ever since I saw the holographic interfaces used by characters
in the first Star Wars
movie I’ve been waiting for the real deal. A new
interactive projection display created by a young interface
company called LM3LABS demonstrates that such displays aren’t
all that far off.
Take a look at their compelling AirStrike floating picture
display:
While this isn’t technically a hologram and is still a crude
prototype, it is a step toward interactive 3D imagery the masses
can relate to. Clearly systems such as the Airstrike have a great
deal of advertising, gaming and educational potential, indicating
that the race is on to make hay of these products.
As compelling software and games are developed for such systems,
I bet we’ll see them emerge as the successors to, or augmenters of,
increasingly popular display technologies such as Reactrix (shout out to
Matt
Bell) that are already invading shopping malls and cities all
over the U.S.
Human computation, the basis of which is discovering what tasks humans can do to make computers smarter, may someday be responsible for making computers not only smarter, but significantly smarter than humans.
Human computation has many applications. For example, computers aren’t very good at identifying what appears in an image, but humans are. To make online image searches more accurate, von Ahn developed the ESP game, which led to the creation of Google’s Image Labeler, and finally the compilation of five different games: Games With A Purpose (GWAP.com).
The model of game play works well. The games are fun, foster bonds and competition, and are free. These are all qualities that have attracted high numbers of players – thus, creating a strong effort to make not only image searches more durable, but also bring computers closer to thinking like humans.
The question is, when will all our game playing lead to a smarter computer that no longer needs our help?
In June 2006, von Ahn was invited to the Google campus to give a TechTalk lecture on human computation and brought up some interesting points about the bond and tension between humans and machines:
At one point von Ahn jokes that the interactions he’s created through GWAP could lead to a world similar to the one depicted in The Matrix; that is, one in which machines rule the universe and generate power from human brains.
Although his speculation appeared light-hearted, when I ask von Ahn what he thinks now, he asserts: “I completely believe computers will become every bit as intelligent as humans, possibly even more intelligent. I don’t see why not: the brain is a machine, we just don’t understand how it works yet.”
