Using AI Appropriately

I had the pleasure of helping develop the PlayStation 5 video-game console when I worked in Research and Development at Sony Interactive Entertainment. One of the advantages of the hardware is that the file system is fast enough so it is not necessary to keep multiple copies of digital assets. What does that mean? When you create a virtual world, it is made up of a number of digital assets such as trees, rocks, buildings, or any number of other things we find in the real world. Most of the time, those assets are used over and over again. For the sake of an example, a forest is made up of a lot of trees. There may be only 5 different tree models created for a game and then they are reused many times to give the illusion of a forest. With the PS4, game designers would copy those 5 trees hundreds of times. That isn't necessary on a PS5 as you can have just the 5 tree types and point back to each one on the file system any time you need it. Assuming each tree requires 4KB of memory (an arbitrary value pulled out of thin air) and you have 1000 of each tree in a game, the PS4 would require 4MB for each tree used while the PS5 only needs 4KB. Theoretically PS5 games should be significantly smaller than for other game consoles. This becomes very helpful for games like Red Dead Redemption 2 that required 2 Blu-ray disks for the game. For physical game disks, it saves a bit of money and for digital downloads, they don't take as long to put on your system.

So what does that have to do with using AI appropriately? It boils down to why game developers only make 5 tree models. Most gamers don't slow down and look at every tree in a forest to see if it is different than all the others. So why take the time to create more than 5? If you can throw the problem at a generative AI program, you can let it create hundreds of different trees. This provides a level of uniqueness currently missing in a lot of games. This totally eliminates the benefit of the PS5 over other gaming consoles as its games once again become bloated. The reality is that while the PS5 doesn't require duplication of digital assets doesn't mean game studios are using the feature. You will still find copies of digital assets spread throughout quite a few games. Why not make the games more unique?

I have been thinking about this issue for the past couple of days and came up with another area where the use of AI should be applied. I walked through my kitchen this morning to get myself some breakfast. My floor is a high-quality laminate with a simulated pine surface. While pine is great looking, it is a very soft wood and makes horrible flooring that is easily scratched and dented. Using a high-quality laminate allows it to be almost indestructible yet look beautiful. The downside to a laminate is that there are only about 5 patterns on the boards. They repeat quite often and if you look closely you notice a lot of the boards are the same. The laminate floor company could use AI to create 100 different patterns instead of just 5. This would create a much more unique floor.

Yes these two solutions for generative AI don't seem to be high priority. After all if they were, companies would spend the effort to make their products more unique. The beauty of using AI is that products can become more unique and special without humans having to spend more time making it happen. You will still need those humans to fine-tune what is generated but their time can be spent being creative and not doing repetitive and mundane tasks.

 

Using Napkin.AI to Streamline Presentations

There is a lot of focus on artificial intelligence (AI) in the media right now. Some of it is good and some of it is bad. Yesterday I had a colleague ask me how I use AI in my job right now. I had to confess that I know lots of areas where it can be used, such as summarizing lengthy articles or generating complex code, but that I don't feel the need to use it. Then I thought back to when I created my last presentation. That is a classic example of where anyone can use AI to help.

I sit through a lot of presentations and hate it when someone creates overly-wordy slides. It makes for a very uninteresting presentation and is often called "Death by Powerpoint." When I find myself putting a bunch of text on a slide, I take a step back and try to figure out how to replace all the words with a simple picture. Sometimes that can be rather difficult and so I told my colleague that AI is a great way to streamline a presentation. We have an internal engine at Sony that we are encouraged to use. That keeps our confidential text from falling into the wrong hands.

My colleague asked if I had ever used napkin.ai, which is a website specifically designed to take presentation text and turn it into a picture. I immediately logged in and gave it a shot. I didn't have to create a new user or anything as I just logged in using my Google account. Then I copied some text from a personal document I had open and it generated several images for me to select. It worked amazingly well.

Should you find yourself trying to create a presentation and have a slide filled with text, I highly suggest you give napkin.ai a test. It may just help things become more easier to understand. Of course be sure not to input confidential or sensitive information as there is no guarantee it will remain so. 

Generative Artificial Intelligence

Today I am attending a seminar internal to my company about generative artificial intelligence or GenAI for short. It is very interesting and while I have played with the technology before, today we get to dive into a number of different topics. In my last session, we talked about the ethics of GenAI and acceptable use within my company, Sony, and how bad actors might be able to use it.

Yesterday I wrote about scam websites. I found it interesting that we would cover how someone could use GenAI to scam people. A few years ago my dad got an e-mail from a neighbor traveling in Europe who got into a bind and needed money. Wanting to verify the story, my dad called his neighbor. Yes, the neighbor was in Europe but no, he didn't need cash. Now using GenAI, the bad actor could call my dad using a fake voice that sounds exactly like the neighbor. What can you do to prevent such a scam from happening to you?

The obvious answer is to do exactly what my dad did before: call the neighbor directly. How you get off the phone is up to you. My favorite is faking a disconnection but the important point is to call the neighbor directly using a number you already know and not one provided by the scammer. This is especially important when the person asking for help is a close family member. While you may feel you can tell the difference between a son or daughter and some GenAI tool, the tools are becoming so advanced, it is getting tougher to hear differences.

As with any technology, GenAI can be used for good but it can also be used for harm. You don't have to become an expert in it to keep yourself safe from potential scams. You just need to understand what is possible and use your own common sense to prevent potential fraud.