TechFirst with John Koetsier – Details, episodes & analysis

How will AI change games? How is AI changing games? In this TechFirst we chat with Morgan McGuire, Roblox's Chief Scientist and a former Nvidia research scientist. He tells host John Koetsier how AI is not only enhancing game creation through generative AI but also revolutionizing multiplayer game safety with advanced AI moderation systems. We chat about the explosive growth of Roblox and share insights into how AI is shaping the future of interactive, social, and immersive gaming experiences. Ultimately, McGuire says, we might be creating games with our voices in the not-so-distant future ... 00:00 Future of AI in Game Development 01:28 Roblox's 4D AI Initiative 03:24 Roblox's Impressive Growth 07:33 AI and Safety on Roblox 09:52 Voice Moderation Technology 17:49 Translation and Global Reach 20:10 Open Source Voice Safety Model 20:49 Native Language Translation Approach 21:20 Insights from AI Systems 22:09 Human Communication and AI Moderation 25:23 Generative AI in Roblox 26:13 User-Generated Content and Platform Growth 28:10 AI-Powered Content Creation 31:02 Quality and Community in Roblox 32:48 Innovative Social Roleplaying Experiences 35:46 Challenges and Future of AI in Gaming

Is an AI system smart when it can do what a human can do? Or … when it can do things humans can’t do? For years we’ve had the Turing Test … measuring AI’s ability to mimic being human. But is that really the right benchmark? In this TechFirst, host John Koetsier chats with a computer scientist who has been working in AI for more than a decade. He’s currently VP strategy at Intuition Robotics, which makes an AI-powered robotic care companion for the elderly called ElliQ His name is Assaf Gad, and we talk about intelligence, AI and OI (organic intelligence), as well as how smart machines like ElliQ engage with people. 00:00 Introduction to AI and Machine Intelligence 00:57 Defining Machine Intelligence 02:01 The Role of Memory in AI 04:20 Human Interaction and AI Design 06:32 ElliQ: The AI Care Companion 11:02 Proactive AI and User Experience 13:22 Challenges and Solutions for Elderly Care 17:34 The Future of AI and Multiple Intelligences 20:53 Ethical Considerations and Control in AI 23:07 Impact of ElliQ on Social Isolation and Independence 27:42 Technical Aspects and AI Integration 29:45 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

In January of this year, Peregrine Mission One launched with at least 22 payloads. One was intended to be the first American made rover to land on the moon since the Apollo days: 1972. It was called Iris, and it was also the first lunar rover constructed with carbon fiber. It was designed and built by students at Carnegie Mellon University. Today, we’re going to chat with them ... Despite a mission failure due to the lander experiencing a propellant leak and missing its lunar target, the Iris team achieved significant milestones. They successfully demonstrated that student-made rovers could survive space conditions, including the Van Allen Belt's radiation, and maintain communication and functions in space. This project, despite its setbacks, marks a significant achievement in democratizing space exploration and contributes to the broader vision of establishing moon bases and Mars bases as stepping stones for further space exploration. 00:00 The Future of Space Exploration: Moon and Mars Bases 00:42 Introducing can the Iris Lunar Rover Project 05:17 The Team Behind Iris: Roles and Experiences 09:00 Scientific Goals and Achievements of the Iris Rover 12:58 Overcoming Failure: Lessons from a Mission Gone Wrong 22:03 The Next Steps: Future Missions and Career Paths 25:59 Reflecting on the Golden Age of Space Exploration

Quantum computing currently costs $10,000 a qubit: just one of the reasons why it's hard and expensive to scale. SEEQC is taking a different approach to building scalable million-qubit machines that can actually deliver on the promise of quantum computers and revolutionize computing.

Will they succeed?

Hard to say, but SEEQC just announced that they are building a commercially-scalable, application-specific quantum computer for pharmaceutical drug development. Merck has bought one, and the company is partnering with Riverlane and Oxford Instruments to make it a reality.

The real challenge here is to take quantum computing from a V2 rocket era, CEO John Levy says, and bring it into the SpaceX era. In other words, to generate real, massive, lasting, and provable value from quantum computers ... which, let's be honest, we haven't really seen yet.

Links:

SEEQC: https://seeqc.com

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Drones are super-cool and fun. They could also be a terrorist's favorite weapon, allowing them to strike from a distance in safety.

But how do you defend against tiny, almost invisible flying machines that fly fast, elevate over fences, and can carry explosives or toxins into dangerous proximity to infrastructure and people?

In this episode of the TechFirst podcast, I chat with the CEO of Dedrone, which "dedrones" sensitive airspaces using sensors, AI, machine learning, and orchestration of defense and interdiction activity via lasers, jamming, and yes ... "putting lead on it."

Links:

Dedrone: https://www.dedrone.com

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Billions of people have jobs that require heavy lifting, and most of them will lose health and ability over years of repetitive stress. German Bionic thinks its Cray X bionic exoskeleton, powered, by AI, will not only help workers do their jobs safely, but also help others: sick, injured, or old.

Cray X helps workers lift with 66 pounds of lifting support, and uses rechargeable batteries so you can wear it all day. It's built with carbon fibre so it's light, and it's built-in AI learns your patterns to assist better.

Best part: at the end of the day the AI tells you how many tons you've lifted and what you've done ... essentially gamifying work.

Links:

German Bionic: https://www.germanbionic.com/en/home/

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

Buy $SMRT to join a community focused on tech for good: the emerging world of smart matter. Access my private Slack, get your name in my book, suggest speakers for TechFirst ... and support my work.

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

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It is NEXT YEAR PREDICTIONS time again :-)

This TechFirst we're chatting with App Annie CEO Ted Krantz about what's hot, what's big, and what's growing in mobile in 2022. Fintech, sure. Social monetization, yep. TikTok continuing to blast off, yes. Plus billions being spent in metaverse (yes! already!) and the ever-expanding billion-download-app club.

We also chat some Roblox, NikeLand, crypto, Subway Surfers (still around! still killing it!) and The Company Formerly Known As Facebook.

Enjoy!

Links:

App Annie: https://www.appannie.com/

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

Buy $SMRT to join a community focused on tech for good: the emerging world of smart matter. Access my private Slack, get your name in my book, suggest speakers for TechFirst ... and support my work.

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(Sponsored by my creator coin: $SMRT. Get some here: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/.)

If crypto is the future of finance, the future sucks. It’s hard. Complicated. Easy to screw up. And when you do screw up, you can simply drop tens of thousands of dollars worth of crypto into the void, never to be seen again.

(And we haven’t talked about the scams or the hacks yet.)

Coincast is trying to solve that by making sending crypto as easy as texting. The genesis of the company: a techie trying to get his aunt to buy some crypto, back when Bitcoin was cheap.

In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, we chat with Albert Renshaw, CEO of Coincast, and long-time mobile app developer, founder, and entrepreneur.

What we chat about:

- Coincast

- Cryptocurrency wallets

- Crypto and stress

- Gas fees

- Business model

- The future of crypto

- And much more …

Links:

Coincast: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/coincast-send-crypto/id1517543384

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

Buy $SMRT to join a community focused on tech for good: the emerging world of smart matter. Access my private Slack, get your name in my book, suggest speakers for TechFirst ... and support my work.

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

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Unity might be better positioned than any other company to usher in the Oasis ... AKA the metaverse.

71% of the top thousand mobile games are made with the technology. Half of all mobile PC and console games are also made with Unity. Unity is inherently open, running on over 20 different platforms. The world's already there: 2.5 billion people are playing games built with Unity.

So I'm wondering ... Unity has the planets, the rooms, the solar systems ... when is it going to build the galaxy, the corridors, the connections?

In this episode of TechFirst I chat with Julie Shumaker, who leads growth at Unity.

Links:

Unity: https://unity.com

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

Buy $SMRT to join a community focused on tech for good: the emerging world of smart matter. Access my private Slack, get your name in my book, suggest speakers for TechFirst ... and support my work.

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Adtech is in upheaval. We've seen 7 billion-dollar acquisitions so far this year and we've seen massive change: Uber Eats has an ad network. Doordash has an ad network. Gaming company Zynga owns an ad network. CVS and Walgreens recently launched ad networks too.

So what is an ad network these days?

And are emerging titans like Unity, ironSource, Applovin, and Liftoff+Vungle going to be able to challenging the reigning heavyweights: Google & Facebook?

In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, I'm chatting with Mark Ellis, the CEO of Liftoff or … Liftoff + Vungle or … name-to-be-revealed-at-some-point-in-the-future ...

Links:

Liftoff: https://liftoff.io/

Support TechFirst with $SMRT coins: https://rally.io/creator/SMRT/

Buy $SMRT to join a community focused on tech for good: the emerging world of smart matter. Access my private Slack, get your name in my book, suggest speakers for TechFirst ... and support my work.

TechFirst transcripts: https://johnkoetsier.com/category/tech-first/

Forbes columns: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/ 

Subscribe to the podcast: https://anchor.fm/techfirst 

Full videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/johnkoetsier?sub_confirmation=1 

Keep in touch: https://twitter.com/johnkoetsier