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AI Rapper FN Meka Dropped From Capitol Records After Being Called Out For Racial Stereotyping 

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Capitol Records has dropped AI rapper FN Meka and offered its “deepest apologies to the Black community,” after the virtual celebrity was criticized for perpetuating racist stereotypes. This comes just 10 days after the record label signed FN Meka. 

FN Meka is an AI (Artificially Intelligent) rapper who was given the appearance of a Black Male cyborg. He was initially created in 2019 by Anthony Martini and Brandon Le, co founders of Factory New, a “first of its kind, next-generation music company, specializing in virtual beings” as performers. 

According to Martini, the rapper’s songs are performed by an anonymous Black man, but the music and lyrics are generated by an AI that analyzes popular music. Capitol Records boasted about how he was “the world’s first AR [Augmented Reality] artist to sign with a major label.” 

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However, within the 10 days that FN Meka was signed to the label, backlash against Capitol Records and the creators of the AI rapper grew due to his use of the N-word in his 2019 song ‘Moonwalkin,’ and an Instagram post that showed FN Meka being beaten by a police officer in prison. 

Capitol Records announced on Tuesday that it had “severed ties with the FN Meka project, effective immediately.” 

Just hours before Capitol’s statement Industry Blackout, “a unified body of Black people in the industry committed to changing the community,” released their own statement on FN Meka. 

“FN Meka is offensive and a direct insult to the Black community and our culture. An amalgamation of gross stereotypes, appropriative mannerisms that derive from Black artists, complete with slurs infused in lyrics.” 

“This digital effigy is a careless abomination and disrespectful to real people who face real consequences in real life,” Industry Blackout wrote in their statement to Capitol. 

“For example, Gunna, a Black artist who is featured on a song with FN Meka, is currently incarcerated for rapping the same type of lyrics this robot mimics. The difference is, your artificial rapper will not be subject to federal charges for such,” the group explained. 

 

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“Some of the early content, now if you take it out of context, it obviously looks worse or different than it was intended,” Martini said when he was asked about the image of FN Meka being beaten by a police officer.

“We offer our deepest apologies to the Black community for our insensitivity in signing this project without asking enough questions about equity and the creative process behind it.”

“We thank those who have reached out to us with constructive feedback in the past couple of days – your input was invaluable as we came to the decision to end our association with the project,” the statement read. 

Back in 2021 Martini, who is white, and Le, who is Asian, explained how they were working on making FN Meka fully AI, meaning he would no longer need a human as a voice. 

“As of now, a human voice performs the vocals, but we are working towards the ability to have a computer come up with and perform its own words – and even collaborate with other computers as ‘co-writers’,” Martini said. 

 

virtualrealty

The Newest VR Headset To Be Released In October From Meta

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On Thursday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed the latest addition to his line of virtual reality headsets will be making their debut in October.

The new product from Meta is expected to be fully revealed at the Meta’s annual Connect event which usually takes place sometime within the month of October.

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The codenamed “Project Cambria” is set to contain features that will help users experience the feeling of social presence and have them feel more connected with other users.

Some of the features that will be included with the new VR headset will be more eye- and facial- tracking features. These new features will allow digital avatars to smile and frown within the virtual reality. 

“For me, this stuff is all about, like, helping people connect… I just started thinking about… what would be the ultimate expression of, basically, people using technology to feel present with each other, right? It’s not phones, it’s not computers.”

The new VR headset is supposed to contain a high-resolution color screen, internal sensor for the eye tracking and sophisticated augmented reality. 

The name of the VR headset has yet to be revealed but the cost of the headset is projected to cost around $800. This is a significant price jump up from the popular Quest 2 headset which costed $399 to $499 depending on the model. 

“In the previous version eye contact was all just AI simulated, we didn’t actually know when you were making eye contact because we weren’t tracking the eyes. Now for this version, and hopefully a lot of the different ones we build going forward, you’ll be able to have realistic facial expressions and more transmitted directly to your avatar,” said Zuckerberg. 

In a recent interview on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Rogan was allowed to be one of the first people who got to try out the new VR headset. He stated that he was impressed with all the features and how well his avatar was able to match his facial expression and eyes. 

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“It’s getting to the point where it’s mimicking human patterns in kind of a creepy way,” said Rogan. 

Over the last few years, Meta has been putting a lot of their effort and money into VR and augmented reality to keep expanding and evolving the world of computers and how people interact with them. 

According to Digital Trends, VR players usually identify themselves and have a strong connection to their alternates in virtual reality where real connections can be formed. 

With the increase of the technology, it could become a huge stepping stone in the world of virtual reality.

Man Putting in Contacts

This Start-Up Wants to Make a Contact Lens with a Built-In Display

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As time goes on, more and more technologies that were once considered firmly in the realm of science fiction have become realities. Virtual reality, for instance, was once an idea found in movies depicting the future, and is now a technology that enjoys widespread popularity among fans of video games. And video calls, which first made their appearances in classic sci-fi stories like 2001: A Space Odyssey, have become commonplace thanks to Skype and Facetime. But one technology that has long been considered squarely in the realm of fiction is now close to becoming a reality, thanks to the work of technology start-up Mojo Vision, which plans to sell a contact lens that provides enhancements to the wearer’s vision in the form of improved eyesight during night and a display that superimposes images directly onto the wearer’s field of vision. Such technology is ambitious, to be sure, but Mojo Vision is confident that it can deliver on their groundbreaking promise.

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Currently, the company’s website features slickly-produced proof-of-concept videos demonstrating various proposed features of the product, including navigation imagery superimposed onto one’s view of the road and the ability to highlight various objects in a person’s path. These videos are clearly meant to illustrate the potential of the product in order to attract investors and customers, but they also provide a valuable insight into the company’s vision of how their products can augment the lives of their customers. Companies like Google have experimented with wearable technology with products like Google Glass, which was based on a similar concept but failed to take off as the frames were considered too bulky and obnoxious to wear in public. Mojo Vision’s product, however, would be virtually invisible to everybody except the wearer, virtually eliminating concerns of the aesthetic impact of the technology on the face.

Mojo Vision has been working on their contact lens product for five years, but has only recently unveiled a prototype of their product to reporters, who got a chance to experience a version of what may some day become the future of human-computer interfaces. While the company did not allow journalists to wear the prototype lenses, a reporter from the BBC had the chance to test out the product by holding it a few inches in front of her eye. According to Mojo Vision, their contact lenses will be powered by a battery that lasts for a day and will have to be charged overnight. The lens is planned to be controlled by eye movements, and future versions of the prototype are planned to include a color display as well as support for stereoscopic imagery. Night-vision technology, which currently exists only in prototype form, is planned to work by highlighting the edges of objects, making it easier to navigate in the dark. The lens’s display is powered by a small green dot located directly in the center of the lens, which projects images onto the retina with MicroLED technology.

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As of yet, the company is not ready to show off what the software experience of the contact lens is planned to look like. However, Mojo Vision has used virtual reality to simulate their goals for the lens’s operating system, which is planned to allow users to check their notifications, the weather, and more by glancing into the periphery of their vision. According to Mojo Vision, the prototype lens is safe to wear, as it is oxygen-permeable and has in fact been worn by employees. However, the question of whether or not consumers will be willing to wear a piece of technology with a battery and a display on their eyes remains unresolved. That being said, the technology may be of particular use for people with vision problems like macular degeneration. While Mojo Vision has committed to eventually releasing a real product instead of allowing the technology to become vaporware, it remains to be seen how successful such an ambitious product can be.