Hey! I checked out your site and I found it really interesting. In terms of utility & implementation simplicity, I think focusing purely on digital prescence is a reasonable. If you were to train a model on a sequence of all inputs + the screen state + audio output of a computer, I think this might end up being a surprisingly powerful “general-purpose-human-simulator” (especially given how much the average person lives their lives through their screen). One thing that draws me to lifelogging-style video is the promise to capture the more subtle and poetic parts of being human (listening in on other conversations in the restaurant, laughing at the joke the barista makes when you order your coffee, etc). I think these aspects are what elevate simulator models from being something merely “economically useful” to something that genuinely understands (and can recreate) enough parts of people for the model outputs to be considered morally valuable “living” beings.
I definitely share the concerns re data collection. US laws are generally lenient towards this type of video recording in public spaces (though it does vary by state). I worry more about the privacy implications and how it would be possible to respect the rights of anyone that’s recording/is recorded, while also being able to use those recordings to do useful stuff.
Hey! I checked out your site and I found it really interesting. In terms of utility & implementation simplicity, I think focusing purely on digital prescence is a reasonable. If you were to train a model on a sequence of all inputs + the screen state + audio output of a computer, I think this might end up being a surprisingly powerful “general-purpose-human-simulator” (especially given how much the average person lives their lives through their screen). One thing that draws me to lifelogging-style video is the promise to capture the more subtle and poetic parts of being human (listening in on other conversations in the restaurant, laughing at the joke the barista makes when you order your coffee, etc). I think these aspects are what elevate simulator models from being something merely “economically useful” to something that genuinely understands (and can recreate) enough parts of people for the model outputs to be considered morally valuable “living” beings.
I definitely share the concerns re data collection. US laws are generally lenient towards this type of video recording in public spaces (though it does vary by state). I worry more about the privacy implications and how it would be possible to respect the rights of anyone that’s recording/is recorded, while also being able to use those recordings to do useful stuff.