Recent develops in AI technology have led to increasingly sophisticated forms of video manipulation. One such form has been the advent of deepfakes. Deepfakes are AI-generated videos that typically depict people doing and saying things they never did. In this paper, I demonstrate that there is a close structural relationship between deepfakes and more traditional fake barn cases in epistemology. Specifically, I argue that deepfakes generate an analogous degree of epistemic risk to that which is found in traditional cases. (...) Given that barn cases have posed a long-standing challenge for virtue-theoretic accounts of knowledge, I consider whether a similar challenge extends to deepfakes. In doing so, I consider how Duncan Pritchard’s recent anti-risk virtue epistemology meets the challenge. While Pritchard’s account avoids problems in traditional barn cases, I claim that it leads to local scepticism about knowledge from online videos in the case of deepfakes. I end by considering how two alternative virtue-theoretic approaches might vindicate our epistemic dependence on videos in an increasingly digital world. (shrink)

The development of the use of computers and software in art from the Fifties to the present is explained. As general aspects of the history of computer art an interface model and three dominant modes to use computational processes (generative, modular, hypertextual) are presented. The "History of Computer Art" features examples of early developments in media like cybernetic sculptures, computer graphics and animation (including music videos and demos), video and computer games, reactive installations, virtual reality, evolutionary art and net (...) art. The functions of relevant art works are explained more detailed than usual in such histories. The second edition for the Book on Demand (Lulu Press, 2020) includes an update of chapter II.1.1 (first edition 2014). (shrink)

[Author note: There is a video explainer of this paper on youtube at the new work in philosophy channel (search for surname+deepfakes).] -/- It is widely thought that deepfake videos are a significant and unprecedented threat to our epistemic practices. In some writing about deepfakes, manipulated videos appear as the harbingers of an unprecedented _epistemic apocalypse_. In this paper I want to take a critical look at some of the more catastrophic predictions about deepfake videos. I will argue for (...) three claims: (1) that once we recognise the role of social norms in the epistemology of recordings, deepfakes are much less concerning, (2) that the history of photographic manipulation reveals some important precedents, correcting claims about the novelty of deepfakes, and (3) that proposed solutions to deepfakes have been overly focused on technological interventions. My overall goal is not so much to argue that deepfakes are not a problem, but to argue that behind concerns around deepfakes lie a more general class of social problems about the organisation of our epistemic practices. (shrink)

YouTube has been implicated in the transformation of users into extremists and conspiracy theorists. The alleged mechanism for this radicalizing process is YouTube’s recommender system, which is optimized to amplify and promote clips that users are likely to watch through to the end. YouTube optimizes for watch-through for economic reasons: people who watch a video through to the end are likely to then watch the next recommended video as well, which means that more advertisements can be served to (...) them. This is a seemingly innocuous design choice, but it has a troubling side-effect. Critics of YouTube have alleged that the recommender system tends to recommend extremist content and conspiracy theories, as such videos are especially likely to capture and keep users’ attention. To date, the problem of radicalization via the YouTube recommender system has been a matter of speculation. The current study represents the first systematic, pre-registered attempt to establish whether and to what extent the recommender system tends to promote such content. We begin by contextualizing our study in the framework of technological seduction. Next, we explain our methodology. After that, we present our results, which are consistent with the radicalization hypothesis. Finally, we discuss our findings, as well as directions for future research and recommendations for users, industry, and policy-makers. (shrink)

Given that conspiracies exist, can we be justified in dismissing conspiracy theories without concerning ourselves with specific details? I answer this question by focusing on contrarian conspiracy theories, theories about conspiracies that conflict with testimony from reliable sources of information. For example, theories that say the CIA masterminded the assassination of John F. Kennedy, 9/11 was an inside job, or the Freemasons are secretly running the world are contrarian conspiracy theories. When someone argues for a contrarian conspiracy theory, their options (...) are to appeal to eyewitness testimony, incriminating documents, photographs, audio recordings, video recordings, allegedly scientific evidence, anomalies, or considerations of cui bono (who benefits). Most laypeople don’t know how to adequately respond to arguments for contrarian conspiracy theories, but this doesn’t mean that it’s dogmatic to reject them. I argue that many laypeople are defeasibly justified in rejecting a variety of contrarian conspiracy theories based on testimony and this justification is rarely defeated by arguments for contrarian conspiracy theories even if we don’t know how to respond to these arguments. (shrink)

Deepfakes are extremely realistic audio/video media. They are produced via a complex machine-learning process, one that centrally involves training an algorithm on hundreds or thousands of audio/video recordings of an object or person, S, with the aim of either creating entirely new audio/video media of S or else altering existing audio/video media of S. Deepfakes are widely predicted to have deleterious consequences (principally, moral and epistemic ones) for both individuals and various of our social practices and (...) institutions. In this introduction to the Topical Collection, I first survey existing philosophical research on deepfakes (Sects. 2 and 3). I then give an overview of the papers that comprise the Collection (Sect. 4). Finally, I conclude with remarks on a line of argument made in a number of papers in the Topical Collection: that deepfakes may cause their own demise (Sect. 5). (shrink)

In this paper, I draw a distinction between two types of deepfake, and unpack the deceptive strategies that are made possible by the second. The first category, which has been the focus of existing literature on the topic, consists of those deepfakes that act as a fabricated record of events, talk, and action, where any utterances included in the footage are not addressed to the audience of the deepfake. For instance, a fake video of two politicians conversing with one (...) another. The second category consists of those deepfakes that direct an illocutionary speech act - such as a request, injunction, invitation, or promise - to an addressee who is located outside of the recording. For instance, fake footage of a company director instructing their employee to make a payment, or of a military official urging the populace to flee for safety. Whereas the former category may deceive an audience by giving rise to false beliefs, the latter can more directly manipulate an agent's actions: the speech act's addressee may be moved to accept an invitation or a summons, follow a command, or heed a warning, and in doing so further a deceiver's unethical ends. (shrink)

This article explores the nature and theoretical import of a hitherto neglected class of fictions which we term ‘self-involving interactive fictions’. SIIFs are interactive fictions, but they differ from standard examples of interactive fictions by being, in some important sense, about those who consume them. In order to better understand the nature of SIIFs, and the ways in which they differ from other fictions, we focus primarily on the most prominent example of the category: video-game fictions. We argue that (...) appreciating the self-involving nature of video-game fictions is key to understanding various otherwise puzzling phenomena concerning the ways in which consumers respond to them. Video-game fictions are, however, far from being the only extant example of this class; and we suggest that the recent philosophical interest in video games would be better focused on the wider class of self-involving interactive fictions. (shrink)

The ability of videos to serve as evidence of racial injustice is complex and contested. This essay argues that scrutiny of the Black body has come to play a key role in how videos of police violence are mined for evidence, following a long history of racialized surveillance and attributions of threat and superhuman powers to Black bodies. Using videos to combat injustice requires incorporating humanizing narratives and cultivating resistant modes of looking.

Marginal comments on student essays are a near-universal method of providing feedback in philosophy. Widespread as the practice is, however, it has well-known drawbacks. Commenting on students' work in the form of a video has the potential to improve the feedback experience for both instructors and students. The advantages of video feedback can be seen by examining it from both the professor's and the student's perspective. In discussing the professor's perspective, this article shares observations based on the author's (...) experience delivering feedback through video. Turning to the student's view, it discusses qualitative feedback solicited from students that indicates a clear preference for video feedback over written marginalia. In particular, students describe video feedback as more informative, more personal, better at suggesting improvements on future assignments, enhancing the professor's ability to communicate through tone of voice and gesture, and easier to understand compared to written feedback. (shrink)

This study examined the effectiveness of video-based instruction (VBI) as a learning remediation strategy in teaching Laws of Thermodynamics among Prospective Science Teachers at Bulacan State University. The researchers employed – a one-group pretest–posttest design to assess the 35 prospective science teachers who were purposively selected. More so, data was gathered through researcher-made pretest-posttest achievement tests and an adapted Likert survey questionnaire. The data was treated descriptively and inferentially. The findings showed that VBI as a learning remediation strategy positively (...) affected the preservice teachers’ achievement. In addition, data shows a significant difference between the pretest and posttest in teaching the laws of thermodynamics. The ease of use of VBI as learning remediation in teaching laws of thermodynamics in terms of pedagogical content, individual learning focus, ability to work at pace, and increased engagement was very effective. The learning achievement of the prospective science teachers was significantly related to the ease of use of VBI as a learning remediation. However, it was observed to have a high positive association. Future use of VBI can enhance the prospective science teacher’s competence in using VBI in teaching science subjects. (shrink)

Lately in the past couple of years, there are an increasing in the normal rate of playing computer games or video games compared to the E-learning content that are introduced for the safety of our children, and the impact of the video game addictiveness that ranges from (Musculoskeletal issues, Vision problems and Obesity). Furthermore, this paper introduce an intelligent tutoring system for both parent and their children for enhancement the experience of gaming and tell us about the health (...) problems and how we can solve them, with an easy user interface that way can our children be happy and excited about the information and their health. (shrink)

This research explored the utilization of video-based instructional material in enhancing learning competency among a group of sixty (60) students enrolled in grade 8 at Satriwithaya School in Bangkok, Thailand. The study was carried out. out during the 2nd semester of S.Y. 2023–2024. The respondents were chosen using the approach of purposive sampling. The research study employed an experimental approach and utilized quantitative research. Through the use of of a one-group pre- and post-test, the researcher was able to gather (...) the necessary data. The study included statistical measures such as percentages, means, and standard deviations, as well as dependent and independent t-tests, to assess and compare the proficiency and efficacy of utilizing video-based educational materials among students at Satriwithaya School in Bangkok, Thailand. Study findings also revealed that there is a significant difference in pre- and post-test assessment scores before and after using the video-based instructional materials. The research outcomes indicated that the application of video-based teaching resources as an instructional strategy in the field of biology resulted in an increased degree of effectiveness in the students' learning process. The findings of the study suggest that the utilization of video-based instructional materials has favorable outcomes in terms of enhancing pedagogical and educational achievements in the field of biology. This methodology has been demonstrated to provide learners with with the chance to enhance their comprehension through active participation, cultivate their imagination and cleverness, consequently facilitating enhanced educational achievements. Furthermore, the establishment of a conducive learning atmosphere that is both engaging and pleasurable for students can enhance their overall learning experience. Moreover, this approach enhances the teacher's capacity to convey their intended educational objectives to their students proficiently. -/- . (shrink)

The effect of violent video games is among the most widely discussed topics in media studies, and for good reason. These games are immensely popular, but many seem morally objectionable. Critics attack them for a number of reasons ranging from their capacity to teach players weapons skills to their ability to directly cause violent actions. This essay shows that many of these criticisms are misguided. Theoretical and empirical arguments against violent video games often suffer from a number of (...) significant shortcomings that make them ineffective. This essay argues that video games are defensible from the perspective of Kantian, Aristotelian, and utilitarian moral theories. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to see how mental and language representations are unique from a video-game perspective, using two main criteria. First, I will posit that the level of being both an interactive work of fiction and a self-involving interactive fiction belongs to a fuzzy interval and that some works – and, therefore, some video games – are more immersive than others. Second, I will observe how propositions tie the player’s representations of the real world and (...) the game world. Starting from psychological theories of pretense in children’s make-believe games, I will then expand Nichols and Stich’s cognitive theory of pretense to include an extra layer related to the game world, i.e., player-specific representations that govern player-specific propositions. The representations dealing with the work world are the socially shared ones, while the possible-world representations, dealing with most of the game world, are player-specific and tied to unique language use. (shrink)

This paper explores the benefits of video feedback for teaching philosophy. Our analysis, based on results from a self-report student survey along with our own experience, indicates that video feedback possesses a number of advantages over traditional written comments. In particular we argue that video feedback is conducive to providing high-quality formative feedback, increases detail and clarity, and promotes student engagement. In addition, we argue that the advantages of video feedback make the method an especially apt (...) tool for addressing challenges germane to teaching philosophy. Video feedback allows markers to more easily explain and illustrate philosophical goals and methods. It allows markers to model the doing of philosophy and thereby helps students to see philosophy’s value. Video feedback is a promising tool for addressing both cognitive and affective barriers to learning philosophy. Such advantages are especially valuable in the context of a student-centered, intentional learning framework. In light of these advantages, we find that video feedback is underappreciated and underutilized. (shrink)

In juxtaposition with the myth and tragedy of Ovid’s Medea, this paper investigates the possibility within the Kantian conception of agency of understanding moral evil as acting against one’s better judgment. It defends the thesis that in Kant self-deception, i. e. the intentional untruthfulness to oneself, provides the fundamental structure for choosing against the moral law. I argue that, as Kant’s thought progresses, self-deception slowly proceeds to become the paradigmatic case of moral evil. This is discussed with regard to two (...) important topics in his later moral philosophy: the doctrine of radical evil and the crucial role of the duty of truthfulness in ethics. The inquiry into Kant’s theory of conscience unfolds both against this theoretical background and in light of its historical roots in the polemic against casuistry and probabilism. This contribution closes with a brief look at the tools Kant implements to counter this tendency to self-deception in moral judgment and particularly at the role casuistry plays within his conception of moral education. (shrink)

The issue of fake news and disinformation remains widespread in Bangladesh. The author produced a video documentary “Making OR Faking” that focuses on how this issue affects journalism practices in the mainstream media in Bangladesh. In this piece, the author reflects on how the making of the documentary shaped his understanding of the issue. Undertaking a qualitative approach, the author used semi-structured interviews to explore the insights and perspectives of key informants. Critical reflections on the methodological aspects of the (...) filmmaking process highlight the challenges in processing the construction of meaning through moving images. The analyses of the findings underscore the conceptual issues in understanding fake news and disinformation, the emergence of fake news in Bangladesh, and the impacts on the mainstream media. The article also explores potential ways to tackle this issue. (shrink)

Twenty-two experienced action video-game players (AVGPs) and 18 non-VGPs were tested on a pen-and-paper line bisection task that was untimed. Typically, right-handers bisect lines 2 % to the left of true centre, a bias thought to reflect the dominance of the right-hemisphere for visuospatial attention. Expertise may affect this bias, with expert musicians showing no bias in line bisection performance. Our results show that experienced-AVGPs also bisect lines with no bias with their right hand and a significantly reduced bias (...) with their left hand compared to non-AVGPs. Bisections by experienced-AVGPs were also more precise than those of non-AVGPs. These findings show the cognitive proficiencies of experienced-AVGPs can generalize beyond computer based tasks, which resemble their training environment. (shrink)

The paper classifies euthanasia and discusses its typological presence in storytelling video games. It aims to illustrate the importance of experiencing simulated moral challenges in the context of gameworlds as a significantly influential, exponentially growing form of interactive media. In contrast to older works of art and media, such as film and literature, the difference should be emphasized in light of the player’s ability to make choices in video games. Although the influence of gameworld content depends on the (...) player, the experiences and knowledge gained from playing storytelling video games may influence the player’s problem-solving orientation in the landscape of difficult moral dilemmas they may encounter throughout their lives. (shrink)

Forty years have passed since video-games were first made widely available to the public and subsequently playing games has become a favorite past-time for many. Players continuously engage with dynamic visual displays with success contingent on the time-pressured deployment, and flexible allocation, of attention as well as precise bimanual movements. Evidence to date suggests that both brief and extensive exposure to video-game play can result in a broad range of enhancements to various cognitive faculties that generalize beyond the (...) original context. Despite promise, video-game research is host to a number of methodological issues that require addressing before progress can be made in this area. Here an effort is made to consolidate the past 30 years of literature examining the effects of video-game play on cognitive faculties and, more recently, neural systems. Future work is required to identify the mechanism that allows the act of video-game play to generate such a broad range of generalized enhancements. (shrink)

Speedrunning is a kind of ‘metagame’ involving video games. Though it does not yet have the kind of profile of multiplayer e-sports, speedrunning is fast approaching e-sports in popularity. Aside from audience numbers, however, from the perspective of the philosophy of sport and games, speedrunning is particularly interesting. To the casual player or viewer, speedrunning appears to be a highly irreverent, even pointless, way of playing games, particularly due to the incorporation of “glitches”. For many outside the speedrunning community, (...) the use of glitches appears to be cheating. For speedrunners, however, glitches are entirely within the bounds of acceptability. Because of this, however, speedrunning frequently involves sidestepping what are typically taken to be the core challenges of the game. By examining the distinction between the use of glitches and cheating in speedrunning, we can gain a greater understanding of the unique ethos of this activity; that is, we can make sense of what fundamentally constitutes speedrunning as a metagame. I argue that by understanding the code of the game not as rules but as physics, and by examining what actions are deemed impermissible by the speedrunning community – such as hardware modification and hacking – we can see that the ethos of speedrunning has three components: constitutive skills (including dexterity, memorisation and mental fortitude); a collective, fine-grained knowledge of the game and the desire to subvert the intentions of the programmers. Each of these components limits and structures the earlier ones: collective knowledge takes priority over constitutive skills, and subversion takes priority over both. These three components form the ethos that structures speedrunning as a metagame, expressing what speedrunners take to be its central aim. (shrink)

Although overshadowed by its filmic adaptations (Hideo Nakata, 1998 and Gore Verbinski, 2002), Koji Suzuki’s novel Ring (1991) is at the heart of the international explosion of interest in Japanese horror. This article seeks to explore Suzuki’s overlooked text. Unlike the film versions, the novel is more explicitly focused on the line between self-preservation and self-sacrifice, critiquing the ease with which the former is privileged over the latter. In the novel then, the horror of Sadako’s curse raises questions about the (...) terrors of moral obligation: the lead protagonist (Asakawa) projects the guilt he feels over his self-interested actions, envisaging them as an all-consuming apocalypse. (shrink)

As schools publicly modernize in response to societal changes, additional teaching and learning methods are developed, observed, and used since learners have different learning styles that make it easier for them to grasp and retain the material. During the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers require different media to keep the classroom involved while presenting the lesson materials online, one of which is video tutorials. The purpose of this study was to analyze the extent of contextual effects of video tutorials used (...) in general chemistry, determine the relationship between video tutorial effectiveness and the respondents' academic performance, and analyze the significant difference between the four indicators of contextual effects of video tutorials and the respondents' profile. A descriptive-correlational quantitative research design was used in this study. The participants in this study were 144 Grade 12 STEM students from a private school in Sultan Kudarat, Philippines, who took their general chemistry course during the pandemic. The respondents were given a survey questionnaire created with Google Forms. The students agreed with all the assertions and rated them as effective in terms of their perceptions of general chemistry, implying that video tutorials are useful in teaching the subject. With p-values of .023, .046, and .010, respectively, the findings revealed a significant relationship between the overall mean of students' perceptions of the subject of General Chemistry, the concept and application of chemical knowledge and understanding, and their influence on students' academic performance. In terms of their perception, ideas, and application of chemical knowledge and comprehension, the results demonstrated that there is no statistically significant difference between the general mean of male and female students' responses. This basically means that by using video lectures, STEM students of all genders appreciate and understand General Chemistry as a subject. -/- . (shrink)

Increasing behavioural evidence suggests that expert video game players (VGPs) show enhanced visual attention and visuospatial abilities, but what underlies these enhancements remains unclear. We administered the Poffenberger paradigm with concurrent electroencephalogram (EEG) recording to assess occipital N1 latencies and interhemispheric transfer time (IHTT) in expert VGPs. Participants comprised 15 right-handed male expert VGPs and 16 non-VGP controls matched for age, handedness, IQ and years of education. Expert VGPs began playing before age 10, had a minimum 8 years experience, (...) and maintained playtime of at least 20 hours per week over the last 6 months. Non-VGPs had little-to-no game play experience (maximum 1.5 years). Participants responded to checkerboard stimuli presented to the left and right visual fields while 128-channel EEG was recorded. Expert VGPs responded significantly more quickly than non-VGPs. Expert VGPs also had significantly earlier occipital N1s in direct visual pathways (the hemisphere contralateral to the visual field in which the stimulus was presented). IHTT was calculated by comparing the latencies of occipital N1 components between hemispheres. No significant between-group differences in electrophysiological estimates of IHTT were found. Shorter N1 latencies may enable expert VGPs to discriminate attended visual stimuli significantly earlier than non-VGPs and contribute to faster responding in visual tasks. As successful video-game play requires precise, time pressured, bimanual motor movements in response to complex visual stimuli, which in this sample began during early childhood, these differences may reflect the experience and training involved during the development of video-game expertise, but training studies are needed to test this prediction. (shrink)

In today’s global higher education environment, international students represent not only an important source of external income for universities: the degree of cross-border student mobility also reflects the internationalization of higher education sector. Universities have engaged in efforts to sell themselves to prospective students and promotional videos are among the most widely used marketing tools for this purpose. This study reports the results of a study analyzing the content of 140 higher education promotional videos from 14 countries available on YouTube. (...) The results reveal that while the pattern of use of YouTube for two-waycommunication with viewers, information contents and appeal messages among sampled universities is fairly homogenous, some marked differences emerge when cultural background and global position ranking of the university are taken into account. The implications of these findings are that, although, transnational higher education has been profoundly globalized, culture still plays a significant role in marketing practice for the recruitment of mobile students. In addition, different universities have various student-targeted segments. These findings provide the basis of a series of recommendations for universities looking to optimize their use of YouTube and promotional video design to market to international students. (shrink)

Today’s everyone normal life can include a normal rate of playing computer games or video games; but what about an excessive or compulsive use of video games that impact on our life? Our kids, who usually spend a lot of time in playing video games will likely have a trouble in paying attention to their school lessons. In this paper, we introduce an expert system to help users in getting the correct diagnosis of the health problem of (...) video game addictions that range from (Musculoskeletal issues, Vision problems and Obesity). Moreover, this expert system provides information about the problem and tell us how we can solve it. SL5 Object expert system language was used to design and implement the expert system. (shrink)

What is the difference between a game and life? Is the game really ending when we go back to our everyday activities? Or could The Sims video game not be a good representation of our existence? It is with these questions in mind that I decided to explore the interdependence that exists between our everyday cultural reality and the rhetoric manifesting itself in video games. This paper introduces some of the key concepts used in the semiotics of (...) class='Hi'>video games and attempts to articulate them in a single frame. It is a short introduction to storyworlds, procedural rhetoric and gamespace. (shrink)

This article criticises David Chalmers’ ‘Reality+’ by interrogating its distinction of virtual reality (VR) from 2D, non-VR video games, a distinction made on the grounds that VR is immersive and these types of video games are not because immersion is a distinct characteristic of 3D perceptually represented VR. Building on the Balcerak Jacksons’ account of ‘representational immersion’, which they acknowledge has ‘perceptual’ and ‘non-perceptual’ elements, I develop an account of ‘non-perceptual representational immersion’ and use it to critique Chalmers’ (...) treatment of VR, immersion, and video games, indirectly problematizing his central ontological claim that ‘virtual reality is genuine reality’ and the reflections he makes about future society which rest upon it. I argue that video games are rich in non-perceptual representational immersion, which includes the representation of non-perceptual information about the structure and behaviour of a virtual world and its systems, the non-perceptual cognitive states that are generated in the player by the virtual world, and the immersion which comes from the constitutively cognitive nature of the player’s engagement with the virtual world, a cognitive engagement construed in an enactive sense. These are just as crucial to the phenomenon of digital immersion as perception. Immersion generally is a much more complicated phenomenon than Chalmers allows for, and it is better conceived as taking place on a spectrum which includes both 3D and 2D experiences of virtual worlds, not as hinging on 3D perceptual representation. I use ‘immersive simulation’ games as a case study. (shrink)

This work demonstrates the implementation and use of an encoder-decoder model to perform a many-to-many mapping of video data to text captions. The many-to-many mapping occurs via an input temporal sequence of video frames to an output sequence of words to form a caption sentence. Data preprocessing, model construction, and model training are discussed. Caption correctness is evaluated using 2-gram BLEU scores across the different splits of the dataset. Specific examples of output captions were shown to demonstrate model (...) generality over the video temporal dimension. Predicted captions were shown to generalize over video action, even in instances where the video scene changed dramatically. Model architecture changes are discussed to improve sentence grammar and correctness. (shrink)

This paper investigates the recurrent music ban on musical video broadcasting and the issues of quality of musical contents that have warranted such a phenomenon by the National Broadcasting Commission in Nigeria. The major contention was the justification or otherwise of the ban. The paper employed observational and analytical methodologies to examine the causes of the bans on musical videos in Nigeria by NBC, the reactions of the affected artistes and their fans and the negative effects of erotic lyrics, (...) nudity and suggestive dance steps by minors, ladydancers and the musicians on the youths and other categories of musical video audiences. The paper submits that the NBC’s gestures are commendable and should be sustained while quality assurance efforts should be intensified through promotion of quality musical videos produced more for the purpose of entertainment than education or information. The paper also calls for collaborative efforts among all stakeholders in the music industry to achieve quality in the musical videos produced for general public consumption. This paper encourages musicians to invite creativity into the musical industry in Nigeria by coming out with songs and performances that reflect the cultural values of the country rather than mere entertainment songs and acts that have a greater tendency to corrupt younger minds. (shrink)

Sora from Open AI has shown exceptional performance, yet it faces scrutiny over whether its technological prowess equates to an authentic comprehension of reality. Critics contend that it lacks a foundational grasp of the world, a deficiency V-JEPA from Meta aims to amend with its joint embedding approach. This debate is vital for steering the future direction of Artificial General Intelligence(AGI). We enrich this debate by developing a theory of productive imagination that generates a coherent world model based on Kantian (...) philosophy. We identify three indispensable components in the coherent world model that enable genuine world understanding: latent representations of isolated objects, an a priori law of change across space and time, and Kantian categories. Our analysis reveals that Sora is limited because of its oversight of the a priori law of change and Kantian categories, flaws that are not rectifiable through scaling up the training. V-JEPA learns the context-dependent aspect of the a priori law of change. Yet it fails to fully comprehend Kantian categories and incorporate experience, leading us to conclude that neither system currently achieves a comprehensive world understanding. Nevertheless, each system has developed components essential to advancing an integrated AI productive imagination-understanding engine. Finally, we propose an innovative training framework for an AI productive imagination-understanding engine, centered around a joint embedding system designed to transform disordered perceptual input into a structured, coherent world model. Our philosophical analysis pinpoints critical challenges within contemporary video AI technologies and a pathway toward achieving an AI system capable of genuine world understanding, such that it can be applied for reasoning and planning in the future. (shrink)

Both short and long-term video-game play may result in superior performance on visual and attentional tasks. To further these findings, we compared the performance of experienced male video-game players (VGPs) and non-VGPs on a Simon-task. Experienced-VGPs began playing before the age of 10, had a minimum of 8 years of experience and a minimum play time of over 20 h per week over the past 6 months. Our results reveal a significantly reduced Simon-effect in experienced-VGPs relative to non-VGPs. (...) However, this was true only for the right-responses, which typically show a greater Simon-effect than left-responses. In addition, experienced-VGPs demonstrated significantly quicker reaction times and more balanced left-versus-right-hand performance than non-VGPs. Our results suggest that experienced-VGPs can resolve response-selection conflicts more rapidly for right-responses than non-VGPs, and this may in part be underpinned by improved bimanual motor control. (shrink)

Many have offered moral objections to video games, with various critics contending that they depict and promote morally dubious attitudes and behaviour. However, few have offered moral arguments in favour of video games. In this chapter, we develop one such positive moral argument. Specifically, we argue that video games offer one of the only morally acceptable methods for acquiring some ethical knowledge. Consequently, we have (defeasible) moral reasons for creating, distributing, and playing certain morally educating video (...) games. (shrink)

However, people might wonder, did all Chinese students engage in school learning before the creation of electronic games? The answer is definitely no, and apart from gaming, students back in the day would skip classes to attend other activities perceived as “irrelevant” to school learning.

Historic preservation, which is a vital act for conveying people’s understanding of the past, such as events, ideas, and places to the future, allows people to preserve history for future generations. Additionally, since the historic properties are currently concentrated in urban areas, an urban-oriented approach will contribute to the issue. Hence, public awareness is a key factor that paves the way for this conservation. Public history, a history with a public audience and special methods of representation, can serve society in (...) this regard. Historical video games, which get their game objectives from the past, can be considered a form of public history, raising people’s awareness and letting them gain historical experience. While plenty of studies focused on this content with various approaches, this study takes the topic under consideration with a player-oriented focus. The research uses the Steam video game digital distribution service database to explore the existing historical games based on their genre, player scale, dimension, VR compatibility attributes, and player rating. The database includes 1,148 games published between 2002 and 2022, filtered as historical by Steam tags and sorted by player review. For the data collection, the study uses the Octoparse web scraping tool for data extraction, and for the data analysis, it uses RapidMiner Studio data mining software. The study aims to provide a framework applicable to the development of commercially playable historical video games contributing to heritage preservation by raising public awareness in the context of public history. (shrink)

This dissertation was written for the purpose of displacing the negative stereotype of video games being deemed as ‘lowbrow’ entertainment within critical and academic circles, when in actuality the medium has the ability to tell a captivating story through a unique lens unlike the narratives that are traditionally found in a film or a novel. Most of the criticism that games have received in the humanities come from literary scholars who have denounced the medium’s attempts to adapt seminal pieces (...) of literature such as Dante’s Divine Comedy. To counter this assumption, I will be engaging with a video game that has not been marketed as a direct adaptation of the Comedy, but rather uses Dante’s writing as a source of inspiration to enhance its own ludonarrative experience. The game I will be examining in close proximity to the Comedy is the Japanese role-playing game Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne released by the studio Atlus in 2003. Nocturne is an incredibly viable case study for this investigation because it exemplifies how, through the unconventional adaptation process of transmediality, a distant text like an RPG can transform the material of a medieval poem to best fit its digital stage while still referencing its source material. In this context, I intend to establish a methodological basis for the transmedial analysis of literature and video games through the creative insight of the Comedy and Nocturne, so that new meaning can be uncovered from both texts and further research can thus commence on relative instances of ludic adaptation. (shrink)

This study's focus was to determine students' English competency level after exposure to video lessons as supplemental materials. The respondents of the study were 139 Grade 9 students of Mahaplag National High School coming from four sections enrolled for School Year 2022-2023. Quasi-experimental method of research particularly the pretest-posttest design was utilized in the study. Frequency counts, mean percentage score, weighted mean, standard deviation, and paired samples T-test were utilized in data analysis. Results of the study revealed that the (...) competency level of the students on all three learning competencies before the exposure to video lessons is in the poor category. On the other hand, it was revealed in the study that after exposure to video lessons and through the administered post-test, students’ competency levels improved, which now belongs to the fair category. As to the student’s acceptance level of video lessons as supplemental materials, it was found that students positively accept video lessons as supplemental materials for selected English 9 competencies. It was also ascertained that there was a statistically significant increase in the scores of the students on all three competencies after exposure to video lessons. Furthermore, there was a significant increase in students' overall scores on the three competencies. From the results of the study, it can be concluded that video lessons can be a great supplemental material in teaching English 9 competencies. (shrink)

In this position paper, we have used Alan Cooper’s persona technique to illustrate the utility of audio- and video-based AAL technologies. Therefore, two primary examples of potential audio- and video-based AAL users, Anna and Irakli, serve as reference points for describing salient ethical, legal and social challenges related to use of AAL. These challenges are presented on three levels: individual, societal, and regulatory. For each challenge, a set of policy recommendations is suggested.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to defend the notion of “trust in technology” against the philosophical view that this concept is misled and unsuitable for ethical evaluation. In contrast, it is shown that “trustworthy technology” addresses a critical societal need in the digital age as it is inclusive of IT-security risks not only from a technical but also from a public layperson perspective. Design/methodology/approach From an interdisciplinary perspective between philosophy andIT-security, the authors discuss a potential instantiation of a (...) “trustworthy information and communication technology ”: a solution for privacy respecting video surveillance. Here, strong data protection measures address grave concerns such as the threat of bulk biometric tracking of citizens. In a logical argument, however, the authors show that this technical notion of “trust” needs to be complemented by interlocking trust relations to justify public trust. Findings Based on this argument, the authors demonstrate that the philosophical position considering “trust in technology” to denote either “reliability” or “interpersonal trust” is too limited as it fails to address critical aspects of IT-security. In a broader, socio-technical sense, however, it is shown that several distinct accounts of trust – technical, interpersonal and institutional – should meaningfully interlock, to address concerns with ICTs. Originality/value This conceptual study demonstrates the potential of “trust in technology” for a more comprehensive evaluation of ICTs within the context of operation. Furthermore, it adds to the discussion of trust in IT-security by highlighting the layperson’s challenge of judging a technology’s trustworthiness. Vice versa, it contributes to Ethics of Technology by highlighting crucial IT-security needs. (shrink)

Video-game play (particularly “action” video-games) holds exciting promise as an activity that may provide generalized enhancement to a wide range of perceptual and cognitive abilities (for review see Latham et al., 2013a). However, in this article we make the case that to assess accurately the effects of video-game play researchers must better characterize video-game experience and expertise. This requires a more precise and objective assessment of an individual's video-game history and skill level, and making finer (...) distinctions between video-games that fall under the umbrella of “action” games. Failure to consider these factors may partly be responsible for mixed findings (see Boot et al., 2011). (shrink)

It is a matter of fact that Europe is facing more and more crucial challenges regarding health and social care due to the demographic change and the current economic context. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has stressed this situation even further, thus highlighting the need for taking action. Active and Assisted Living technologies come as a viable approach to help facing these challenges, thanks to the high potential they have in enabling remote care and support. Broadly speaking, AAL can be referred (...) to as the use of innovative and advanced Information and Communication Technologies to create supportive, inclusive and empowering applications and environments that enable older, impaired or frail people to live independently and stay active longer in society. AAL capitalizes on the growing pervasiveness and effectiveness of sensing and computing facilities to supply the persons in need with smart assistance, by responding to their necessities of autonomy, independence, comfort, security and safety. The application scenarios addressed by AAL are complex, due to the inherent heterogeneity of the end-user population, their living arrangements, and their physical conditions or impairment. Despite aiming at diverse goals, AAL systems should share some common characteristics. They are designed to provide support in daily life in an invisible, unobtrusive and user-friendly manner. Moreover, they are conceived to be intelligent, to be able to learn and adapt to the requirements and requests of the assisted people, and to synchronise with their specific needs. Nevertheless, to ensure the uptake of AAL in society, potential users must be willing to use AAL applications and to integrate them in their daily environments and lives. In this respect, video- and audio-based AAL applications have several advantages, in terms of unobtrusiveness and information richness. Indeed, cameras and microphones are far less obtrusive with respect to the hindrance other wearable sensors may cause to one’s activities. In addition, a single camera placed in a room can record most of the activities performed in the room, thus replacing many other non-visual sensors. Currently, video-based applications are effective in recognising and monitoring the activities, the movements, and the overall conditions of the assisted individuals as well as to assess their vital parameters. Similarly, audio sensors have the potential to become one of the most important modalities for interaction with AAL systems, as they can have a large range of sensing, do not require physical presence at a particular location and are physically intangible. Moreover, relevant information about individuals’ activities and health status can derive from processing audio signals. Nevertheless, as the other side of the coin, cameras and microphones are often perceived as the most intrusive technologies from the viewpoint of the privacy of the monitored individuals. This is due to the richness of the information these technologies convey and the intimate setting where they may be deployed. Solutions able to ensure privacy preservation by context and by design, as well as to ensure high legal and ethical standards are in high demand. After the review of the current state of play and the discussion in GoodBrother, we may claim that the first solutions in this direction are starting to appear in the literature. A multidisciplinary debate among experts and stakeholders is paving the way towards AAL ensuring ergonomics, usability, acceptance and privacy preservation. The DIANA, PAAL, and VisuAAL projects are examples of this fresh approach. This report provides the reader with a review of the most recent advances in audio- and video-based monitoring technologies for AAL. It has been drafted as a collective effort of WG3 to supply an introduction to AAL, its evolution over time and its main functional and technological underpinnings. In this respect, the report contributes to the field with the outline of a new generation of ethical-aware AAL technologies and a proposal for a novel comprehensive taxonomy of AAL systems and applications. Moreover, the report allows non-technical readers to gather an overview of the main components of an AAL system and how these function and interact with the end-users. The report illustrates the state of the art of the most successful AAL applications and functions based on audio and video data, namely lifelogging and self-monitoring, remote monitoring of vital signs, emotional state recognition, food intake monitoring, activity and behaviour recognition, activity and personal assistance, gesture recognition, fall detection and prevention, mobility assessment and frailty recognition, and cognitive and motor rehabilitation. For these application scenarios, the report illustrates the state of play in terms of scientific advances, available products and research project. The open challenges are also highlighted. The report ends with an overview of the challenges, the hindrances and the opportunities posed by the uptake in real world settings of AAL technologies. In this respect, the report illustrates the current procedural and technological approaches to cope with acceptability, usability and trust in the AAL technology, by surveying strategies and approaches to co-design, to privacy preservation in video and audio data, to transparency and explainability in data processing, and to data transmission and communication. User acceptance and ethical considerations are also debated. Finally, the potentials coming from the silver economy are overviewed. (shrink)

The present study aimed to examine how to improve the effectiveness of moral exemplar-applied interventions based on the pillars of the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) framework, autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Past research has mainly focused on the relatedness and attainability of moral exemplars for predicting motivation outcomes. The data for this study consisted of synthesized data sets from previous studies examining the motivational impacts of distinct moral exemplars and intervention methods. The main syntheses for these data sets used Multilevel Modeling (MLM) (...) focusing on relatability, attainability, and intervention methods, corresponding to relatedness, competence, and autonomy in the SDT, respectively, as predictors. In general, there was a significant interaction effect between the attainability or relatability, and the intervention method. Autonomous instruction methods, which support autonomy, were demonstrated to boost motivational outcomes. Implications from this study support the employment of SDT to examine the use of moral exemplars in moral education and were consistent with previous exemplar studies. (shrink)

This work demonstrates the implementation and use of an encoder-decoder model to perform a many-to-many mapping of video data to text captions. The many-to-many mapping occurs via an input temporal sequence of video frames to an output sequence of words to form a caption sentence. Data preprocessing, model construction, and model training are discussed. Caption correctness is evaluated using 2-gram BLEU scores across the different splits of the dataset. Specific examples of output captions were shown to demonstrate model (...) generality over the video temporal dimension. Predicted captions were shown to generalize over video action, even in instances where the video scene changed dramatically. Model architecture changes are discussed to improve sentence grammar and correctness. (shrink)

In our technologically advanced generation, using video as instructional support is the modern way to give high-quality instruction. Numerous studies have looked at how video education affects students' academic ability, but none have particularly looked at the scientific idea of the Convergent Plate Boundary. This study evaluates how well the video instruction enriched the Convergent Plate Boundary discussion. The study used a mixed method to triangulate the quantitative and qualitative information collected from the respondents who were Grade (...) 10 students at Balao National High School in Balao, Barili, Cebu, Philippines. The t-test was used to analyze the data for the 30 students in the experimental and control groups. The controlled group has a p-value of 0.014 and the experimental group has a p-value of 0.00072. The findings showed a significant difference between the pretest and posttest of both the controlled and experimental groups. Three themes that describe the students' interactions with instructional videos were developed from their real-world experiences: perceived usability, usefulness of instructional videos, and enjoyment. With this, video instruction is a strategy driven by technology that can change the behavior of the students and improve their academic performance as well. This study recommends that: (1) schools should begin using instructional videos to teach and master various disciplines, especially science; (2) schools should use instructional videos to improve students' attitudes toward science and other subjects; (3) teachers should receive training on how to design, develop, and use instructional videos to foster learning; and (4) the benefits of using instructional videos in teaching. (shrink)

My review of Ariemma's "Filosofia del gaming. Da Talete alla PlayStation", published by Tlon (ISBN: 979-1255540021) in 2023, not only wants to point the structure of the book but even expose the urgency of a philosophical analysis of the videogame. Thanks to Ariemma's suggestions, videogames can be argued to be experience virtualizers or "Nietzschean machines". Even further, I try to develop a so called "videogame transcendentalism", where kantism can join the debate by extending the subject transcendental structure into the videogame (...) frontiers. (shrink)

“Black Star” music video was released two days before Bowie’s death. It bears various implications of dying and the notion of mortality is both literal and metaphorical. It is highly autobiographical and serves as a theatrical stage for Bowie to act both as a music performer and as a self-conscious human being. In this paper, we discuss the signs of mortality in Bowie’s “Black Star” music video-clip. We focus on video’s cinematic techniques and codes, on its motivic (...) elements and on its narrative in relation with music, lyrics, characters, and gestures. We also discuss the video’s intertextual references and the broader signification of the black star figure. We adopt a quasi-semiotic approach considering “Black Star” music video-clip as a text which can be investigated through its signs, codes, and conventions of the musical, visual, and cinematic languages as well. Our interdisciplinary tools derive from visual semiotics and audiovisual analysis models, without leaving outside Bowie’s musical-artistic and personal history. As it turns out, Bowie created a video clip that is philosophical in nature and poetic in structure, preserving the role of protagonist. With the visuals creating a psychedelic atmosphere, the lyrics often are heard as a personal confession. They both generate cognitive and emotional responses that influence the way the viewers-listeners may experience, decompose, and interpret Bowie’s artistic endeavor bridging life and death. (shrink)

Finding multi-path routes in ad hoc networks due to their grid topology seems to be a trivial task, but because of CSMA/CA effects in these networks found paths are not completely disjoint unless an appropriate algorithm have taken into account. If such an algorithm provided and designed carefully it could improve multi-path video transmission over these kinds of networks. By using node-disjoint paths, it is expected that the end-to-end delay and BER in each case should be independent of each (...) other. However, because of natural properties and medium access mechanisms in ad hoc networks the end-to-end delay and also BER between any source and destination depends on the pattern of communication in the neighborhood region. In this case some of the intermediate nodes should be silent to reverence their neighbors and this matter increases the end-to-end delay. To avoid this problem, multi-path routing algorithms can use zone-disjoint paths instead of node-disjoint paths. In this paper we demonstrated a new multi-path routing algorithm that selects zone-disjoint paths that in addition used for video multi-path transmission over ad hoc networks. It is shown that by using this new algorithm along with choosing an appropriate scheme for video transmission over discovered paths, our approach receives enhanced results comparing previously used algorithms. (shrink)

I think we have come to a point in the current state of technology where we, as appreciators, makers, and producers of live performances, must ask ourselves an important question. We must ask ourselves whether, in a world where we can easily access videotapes of performances, there is something important that we obtain through our engagement with live performances that we cannot get in our engagement with even the best quality videos. The performing arts, as artforms which perform with real (...) bodies on a stage, seem to be on the verge of an existential crisis. Given the sheer cost of live productions of artworks, it might seem more and more tempting, from both an audience’s and a performing arts organization’s standpoint, to simply create videos of artworks and make them publicly available through the Internet. However, despite the cost efficiency of recordings, many of those who attend live performances have an intuition that there is something we get from a live performance that we cannot obtain from a mere video of that performance. This paper explores and justifies the claim that we do lose something when we videotape a live performance, and what we lose is a sense of the performers’ presence through becoming kinesthetically distanced from the performers’ inner world and their agency. (shrink)