Synthetic Reality — A Definition
“The underlying physical laws necessary for the mathematical theory of a large part of physics and the whole of chemistry are thus completely known, and the difficulty is only that the exact application of these laws leads to equations much too complicated to be soluble.” — Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, Quantum Physicist (Quantum Mechanics of Many Electron System. 1929.)
The term “synthetic reality” has been referenced more in recent years but is far from being a well known term in daily lexicon since its viability has remained elusive over the course of the past decade. But synthetic reality, is for all intents and purposes, is a synthetic version of the real world and all its components and systems (objects, entities, atomic and quantum elements and behaviors, natural phenomena, …) as well as the composability of the aforementioned but here is the important part, it is all a product of artificial intelligence and has no objective except to simulate the elements of the real world.
Well Matt, isn’t that just what virtual reality is except you are saying it is generated by artificial intelligence? Not quite. Virtual reality is a top-down approach to computer generated environments that is designed to provide an immersive experience, it could be a game, a training environment, a simulation, it uses mathematical models to simulate real world physics and experiences but if only to convince the user with enough visual information to achieve reasonable effects and is done in a very programmatic and prescriptive way. The emphasis is on perception and not physical simulation at the quantum and atomic levels. Scientific simulations are sometimes, but not always, concerned with quantum and atomic behaviors and physical accuracy but often have little to no concern for photorealism. This is due to computational constraints which require tradeoffs depending on the application. Modelers shed unnecessary data and computations that don’t directly affect the results of the simulation.
In VR you are limited by the DoF (degrees of freedom) the programmers afford you. Often these experiences are narrative driven or purpose built, even sandbox games which have no game-like objective, still have purpose, to provide a social experience, sell you a plot of land or some other experience-based or value-based objective. Contrast this with synthetic reality, where artificial intelligence is used to generate and govern the simulation and all its elements in a non-prescriptive manner that obeys fundamental natural laws. You might draw a strong reference to the Matrix, a machine generated simulated environment designed to fool the consciousness of its inhabitants into believing they are in the real world. Perhaps the only difference is that synthetic reality is benign and not intended to trap its inhabitants but to allow them to have real world experiences in an immersive photorealistic and physically accurate environment and not drain them of their bio-electric energy to power robots… yet.
Aside from the simulation of natural elements, laws and systems, AI is capable of synthesizing human-devised systems and social constructs like culture, economics, self-organizing systems, political systems, governmental functions, systems that implement rules, controls, procedures, monitoring and validation which range from air-traffic control to police and the military. The value and risks of AI in being able to synthesize these systems in the Metaverse should not be understated as AI is extensible and its development will continue to yield even more efficient means to replicate and perfect existing systems (I recognize this is a controversial subject and it evokes possibly scary uncertain outcomes but through the principles of responsible AI we will have to ensure that high risk systems are developed in a responsible way and enforce controlability, explainability, governance and accountability with attention to human-centeredness, fairness and the reduction of human and algorithmic bias.)
Although no Metaverse yet exists and there is no consensus on what it will be, I do believe that artificial intelligence will play the most integral role in building and operating the Metaverse and empowering and protecting its inhabitants.
