Shaping the future of Waifu culture with Virtual Beings
In November there will be a “Virtual Beings Summit" that will include Speakers from all around the world. Exciting times are ahead but lets break down what a “Virtual Being” is before getting to the goodies on its significance with Pop culture…
What is a Virtual Being?
Ever watched the movie, “Her"? Where Scarlett Johansson was merely a computer that the main character fell in love with? What about the Turing Test champion Mitsuku of pandorabots.com and the plethora of chatbots used for marketing?
Virtual Beings takes all 3 of those a whole lot further. With 3D avatars using Mixed Reality and machine learning, the possibilities are endless for friendly AI.
How this will help Waifu culture…
The image above is a mockup I made for a discarded project featuring Mei from Blizzard Entertainment’s multiplayer shooter Overwatch.
Basically using Augmented Reality we could have our favourite characters in front of us with an AR compatible phone or a VR headset.
Combine AR with machine learning and artificial intelligence we could finally have a realistic virtual friend.
For those unaware, a waifu (or husbando) is a fictional character that some people see as a spouse of theirs. A character from say, a Japanese anime may be so likeable that the watcher could fantasize themselves with them regularly.
It is a massive pop culture movement in Japan and is trickling into Western society little by little. As opposed to it a lot of us are.
The rise of Virtual Beings will give lots of Japanese and elsewhere people a shimmer of hope that they may see the beloved “waifu" beside them.
Of course, there must be someone somewhere already cooking us up a nice AR dish that could change relationships as we know it. But WHO exactly?
A look at the startups bringing Virtual Beings to life…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PzeWxtOGzQ
Magic Leap
These guys have been secretive since 2013 and only recently released their first Mixed Reality Headset, namely the “Magic Leap One".
The video above is a nice demo of their virtual assistant namely MICA. She can talk, do things with the user and interact uncannily.
Sadly a headset is very expensive and only sold in the US as of this article’s publish date.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsK1ekS_oGA
Artie
Definitely the most significant startup for virtual waifuism. Coming out of their secretive space on December 2018, veteran VR film producers Ryan Horrigan and Armando Kirwin are developing the “Wonderfriend Engine".
The Wonderfriend Engine lets developers and companies make augmented reality characters that can be commanded and talked to, similarly to Mica. However it can pretty much be whatever the developer wants making endless opportunities for lovable AI. Including waifus/husbandos
The video above is an awesome demo featuring a developed cartoon character being commanded to do the YMCA dance.
For further reading I highly recommend this great article by Venture Beat who had a look at the company:
https://venturebeat.com/2018/12/06/vr-veterans-found-artie-augmented-reality-avatar-company/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfUf2OfT8ho
Fable Studio
These guys are the founders of the “Virtual Being” concept. It may be Virtual Reality as opposed to Augmented, however Lucy is looking incredibly advanced. The video above really shows how incredible she is.
Furthermore Fable won a freaking Emmy Award for their VR film “Wolves in the Walls" also featuring Lucy.
Read more about her here:
https://fable-studio.com/virtual-beings
Final Thoughts
The next era of media is looking promising overall. Incredibly in fact. Finally being able to have intimacy with fictional characters in a world with these needs is possibly the best thing to happen to pop culture since the rise of Video Games in the 80s.
Aaaaanyway, thanks for reading. I’m passionate about AR as much as the next person.
