Valinakova on DeviantArthttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/https://www.deviantart.com/valinakova/art/How-will-Future-Technologies-Expand-the-Arts-423237264Valinakova

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January 13, 2014
How will Future Technologies Expand the Arts? by ~XSereneiX
Featured by TehAngelsCry
Suggested by Laurelin-CosPlay
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How will Future Technologies Expand the Arts?

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The scene depicts a concept of what I will create in future virtual realities. Feel free to discuss the topic on the future of the arts, the technological singularity, your desires. Feel free to link your concepts, or critique my digital painting.

If you want the 1600X900 resolution, just zoom in to copy and paste the image, or right-click and Save as.

If you want different sizes,
Inside the Zip folder you will find:
1280X720
1920X1080
3200X1800
And the original which is 8000X4500

Weekly Essay______________________________________________________________________________________________
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Exponential Growth of Technology and Their Impacts____________________________________________________________

    As we approach the technological singularity, what we perceive as fiction, as 'hot air' becomes more in line with science.
There was a time in which entire cities made out of glass were nothing but a fantasy, same goes for aircraft heavier than air, yet those all became reality. Today, most modern cities have skyscrapers covered in class, or at least resemble a glass structure aesthetically. We had manned space flight which went all the way to the moon. We have hand held machines called laptops of which would appear completely magical just 70 years ago... The world has changed significantly, but it is not done yet... Not by a long shot. In fact, the pace of acceleration is accelerating at an increasing rate.

    According to Ray Kurtzweil, the price performance of computers doubles every year or so today in terms of Flops and raw computing power. A computer that can do about 1000 dollar computer at 5 trillion computations per second may only be worth about 500 dollars by Halloween of 2014. Now Flops is not the best way to measure the performance of user computers, not by a long shot, but there are numerous trends which point to increasing of price performance. 

In his book 'The Singularity is Near'
Ram 'Half Pitch' Feature Size doubles every 5.4 years in price performance
Dynamic Ram aka bits per dollars 1.5 years
Transistor Price 1.6 years
Microprocessor Cost per Transistor Cycle 1.1 years
Total Bits Shipped 1.1 years
Processor Performance MIPS 1.8 years
Transistors in Intel Microprocessors 2 years
Microprocessor Cloak Speeds 3 years

    According to Ray Kurtzweil: www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-…

  • We achieve one Human Brain capability (2 * 10^16 cps) for $1,000 around the year 2023.
  • We achieve one Human Brain capability (2 * 10^16 cps) for one cent around the year 2037.
  • We achieve one Human Race capability (2 * 10^26 cps) for $1,000 around the year 2049.
  • We achieve one Human Race capability (2 * 10^26 cps) for one cent around the year 2059.

    With this in mind... Combined with research in many other fields such as biology, and the spreading of information and easy access of the arts. We can expect substantial changes in society in relatively short period of time, just as the internet has transformed human civilization. Just 20 years ago, many of our lives were vastly different. Social networks like Deviantart, YouTube, Instagram did not exist. We still got most of our information from watching TV or News Papers instead of reading an online text.. There was hardly any 'alternative media' like Democracy Now or The Young Turks. Computer graphics were bland, editing software such as Photoshop and Corel Painter were much more limited. Your field of associates, meaning who you share information with was far more limited. Right now, a person from Russia, Belgium, or UK can easily find my artwork, communicate with me through Deviantart and download the image at complete ease. 20 years ago, this would not be possible. These are just a handful of examples that could be given as to how modern technology has revolutionized our lives so far.

In Ray Kurtzweil's 2020 Scenario, augmented reality will be in our eye glasses, memory images beamed to our retinas. Virtual realities will encompass our entire visual sense. I will be able to look down at my body and I may be able to see an entirely different body. What I see outside through the augmented eyeglasses could be a fantasy scenery in three dimension. Today we see the first steps of this path, the Google Glasses is the first stepping stone. 

     In Ray Kurtzweil's 2030 Scenario. "Nanobot Technology will provide us with a fully immerse totally convincing virtual reality" (pg 313).  This basically means that if you use such technology, when you enter in such a virtual universe, your experience will be just as realistic as in real life... except the landscapes are more exotic. To make this possible, Nanobots take up close locations in our brains to inter neural connections  our senses to redirect to the virtual reality to immerse us.

    One of the largest benefits of augmented reality is you will not be restricted to be stuck, imprisoned in the image determined almost completely by your genetics, or your environment, you can become someone else, a new body design within the virtual universe. When I tell someone to think 'who is Ernest Tang' they think of my body, a healthy light weight Chinese male with glasses on, black hair, 5 ft 7 inches tall 126 lb. However, in 10-20 years time, I will be inside a highly attractive female body of which I am currently designing in preparation for realistic virtual reality... We will all have the ability to choose different bodies in side virtual realities.

    In this case, if you think 'who is Ernest Tang' you will likely picture two bodies, one a healthy light weight Chinese male with glasses and black hair, the other as a tall healthy light weight blond hair Slavic model. If you spend most of your time with me in the virtual reality, you will most likely think of my identity as the healthy light weight blond hair Slavic model... and this is because the future of virtual reality will be so realistic that it is pretty much indistinguishable from real reality. If I uploaded my concept as to what I wish to look like as an icon for my Deviantart page. And for the sake of argument, assuming you know what I look like in real life, you would still see me as the male, and that is because there is very little realism in the a tiny portrait or even an unrealistic avatar in a game like 2nd life, because they lack the subtleties of humans in real life which make up who we are. Future virtual realities will allow for all the subtleties to be simulated in our virtual realities, to all our 5 senses.

    Why should we trust Ray Kurtzweil's predictions? 86% of his predictions have been correct by a few years, only a handful the 14% were off by a decade or more. If you compare the exponential growth of information technologies with the proximate computing power for virtual realities then fully immersible virtual realities, a rough estimate of the year 2030 is a reliable estimate.

____________________________So what does this mean for the Future of the Arts?____________________________________

    Art has been transformed thanks to technology, and for the better. As a personal story, I have always struggled with traditional medium, a painting would often take me 2 months to complete, some 100-300 hours yet in terms of my satisfaction, overall beauty, detail, and rendering pales in comparison to the art I created in Photoshop today. And that is comparing a 200 hour painting done with traditional material to a digital painting which took just 30 hours. Many artists who were unable to do truly exceptional works of art were now able to produce some of the best quality on this site. I know this by searching some of the digital artists I look up to here, comparing their traditional works which were between Ok-decent-good quality though not exceptional, to their digital works which blew me away... Photo editing and digital painting tools have opened bridge of opportunity of self expression to many whom would not have made it.

    As of right now, 3d worlds such as the World of Warcraft, an area perhaps the size of an entire major city several miles wide is owned and controlled by a corporation. However, in the coming decades or so, considering price performance's exponential growth in information technologies. Also considering the advances made in both 2d and 3d software, individuals creating owning a piece of highly realistic 'virtual reality' land several kilometers wide in which we can immerse ourselves, and share could become common. Such technologies once more shall transform the arts.

    I see amazing concepts on this site, breath taking concepts, space scenes, science fiction fantasies. In a few decades, we may expect such worlds to exist in super realistic virtual realities. An entire new genre of art will emerge from science fiction and fantasy: Virtual Worlds, or Cybernetic Worlds, Virtual Realities. With such technologies will allow self expression to reach a level of realism as our physical reality. Imagine custom made laws of physics, manipulated and distorted Paris, San Francisco, or an entirely made up city. 'Importing' simulated animals files, perhaps butterflies, a talking lion like in the cartoons, or kangaroos into our virtual reality homes. Creation of colors of planets that cannot even exist in real reality! A planet with zero gravity yet can still hold an atmosphere. There will be almost no limits to what will come with Virtual Realities. Many of the 2d concepts you see here on Deviantart will become virtual realities.

    As said before about a duo identity, one in for your physical world, another for your virtual reality, expect a new genre of art to emerge off this branch as well. Because the identity inside cyberspace can be vastly different from physical reality, expect radical new ways of self expression of the body. Just as many here on this site design elven characters, it is likely many may choose to create elven identities within the virtual reality. Perhaps some may choose to create avatars which are semi-transparent with 50 feet wingspans, or forms which do not even resemble a human! 

    The future of technology is an exciting topic to discuss, the way it will revolutionize the artist is something that is to be embraced. I look forward to what you will create 20, 30, 40 years from now with virtual realities.

    If you are interested on the topic, I strongly would encourage you to read more on www.kurzweilai.net/the-ray-kur… and purchase his books "How to Create a Mind" and "The Singularity is Near". Both great reads for affordable prices.

Ray Kurtzweil explains the Singularity in a short youtube video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uIzS1…
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What can individuals do to secure a positive singularity if you are not a scientist politician, or someone working in relation with them?

1) Spread the word on major issues still present today whether that would be climate change, poverty, aging as a major issue, you name it.

2)Charitable donations can go a long ways. 

MIRI: intelligence.org/research/ Machine Intelligence Research Institute, tax deductible charity.
"MIRI’s mission is to ensure that the creation of smarter-than-human intelligence has a positive impact. We aim to make intelligent machines behave as we intend even in the absence of immediate human supervision. Much of our current research deals with reflection, an AI’s ability to reason about its own behavior in a principled rather than ad-hoc way. We focus our research on AI approaches that can be madetransparent (e.g. principled decision algorithms, not genetic algorithms), so that humans can understand why the AIs behave as they do".

SENS: www.sens.org/ One of the most well known charities when it comes down to reversing the aging process.
"SENS Research Foundation is a 501(c)(3) public charity that is transforming the way the world researches and treats age-related disease. Their work will move us leaps forward in defeating aging.


The research we fund at universities around the world and at our own Research Center uses regenerative medicine to repair the damage underlying the diseases of aging. Our goal is to help build the industry that will cure these diseases."

essentially they aim to combat aging/growing old to prolong our lives. We will be able to live as healthy as a 25 years old indefinitely. Lifespans can be centuries to thousands of years!  and we expect the first generation of radical life extension to come in less than 20 years.


Save the Children: www.savethechildren.org/

"Save the Children gives children in the United States and around the world what every child deserves – a healthy start, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. When disaster strikes, we put children’s needs first. We advocate for and achieve large-scale change for children. We save children’s lives. Join us."

Charity which funds family planning, contraception, family planning, education, and other much needed resources for the world's poor.


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More on my art

Used NASA stock images visibleearth.nasa.gov/ to render

Next Essay will focus on the Ethics of created consciousness in virtual reality computers, and why they should be given humane simulations. And how do we define 'humane' simulation.
Comments116
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Valinakova - What a beautiful piece accompanied by a thought provoking article about the future of art. I love them both. With proper acknowledgement, I used your piece as a banner for an article that I wrote tonight. I get the sense that you see something in the future that can be incredibly impactful to humanity as a hole. I'd like to invite you to read my article as well.

https://eonartist.medium.com/im-looking-for-my-people-478989764fa7