Text-to-Video in AI-Enhanced Training and Marketing Modules: Testing Synthesia's Platform

Synthesia https://www.synthesia.io/ is a platform that generates video from text to create product promotion videos, narrated training videos, corporate onboarding and more.  

My first reaction was “wow!” and imagined an AI-powered app that would read a short story or training storyboard and create a full animation based on it.  So, my expectations were really high, and I was envisioning creating videos that could change the world – or at least generate serviceable learning and training videos, and perhaps even creative work. 

Here's a video I made, where I walk through the platform and also play the brief video I made: https://youtu.be/AMJDR67IaXA?si=gx2NXDfmxyATazi1 

I misunderstood the capabilities of the platform, but still, when I experimented with it, I was impressed with what could be done. Basically, Synthesia centers itself around a cast of avatars which are based on real actors, and they can be used to narrate the text in training and promotional videos.  The images and voices are generated from AI.  To deploy the avatars in productive ways, Synthesia has developed templates, which are professionally designed and which have built in some basics of instructional design and marketing.  On the instructional design side of things, they are not as rigorous as they could be, and it’s clear that these templates are points of departure, but not the end product. 

What I liked most about Synthesia:

·      I love the name!  It could be a goddess in ancient Greek mythology, especially if you pronounce it Sin-TAY-zee-a. 

·      Ease of use is a major “plus” – fit for purpose templates reduce the time of content development, and the fact they are modifiable is a huge “plus.”

·      Excellent selection of avatars – they are amazing. The voices are nice, too. That said, the platform allows you to represent yourself or any other person who upload their own videos. 

·      Templates – whether they be for training or product marketing, the templates feature branching scenarios for adaptive learning, corporate training (compliance, etc.), softskill training, product marketing

·      Collaborative capabilities: the platform allows multiple collaborators, and in the case of boo-boos, version history for recovery of work

·      The platform claims to have the ability to translate into 145 languages. It does not say how well, accurately, or idiomatically such a task would be performed.  My personal feeling is, “Don’t hold your breath” and my second thought was “Caution! Never release unchecked and unreviewed from AI into the wild!!!!”

What I liked less about Synthesia:

·      The first thing I noticed when I tried out the program was that Synthesia must review the script and if there is anything that aligns with the program’s “trigger” words, the whole project will be shut down. I experienced that myself.  I thought it would be fun to see how Synthesia tackled the idea of marketing / promoting a novel, Todos Santos, which is both sci-fi and horror, with some zombie elements along with scary technology and a deranged scientist. Welp. Synthesia said “NO” and would not stomach such project. I get it. A rogue scientist creating zombies is not a universally appealing premise. That said, what happens if you are doing medical training or launching a medical product? Will you be censored? 

·      I was really disappointed in the voice-over and the awkward phrasings and pronunciations.  I don’t know how easily one can train the voice, but it’s important. Since the main area of competitive advantage for this product is the idea that you can use an AI avatar instead of voice talent or actors, this is an important point. I guess it depends on what you want your ultimate level of quality to be. 

·      A final little quibble is that the learning templates did not have assessments built in, and I would have hoped for multiple choice quizzes at the very least. 

Final Thoughts

It is fascinating to see how products are being developed that utilize AI in various products.  They test assumptions about how people learn best online, and also encourage engagement.  

As in the case of all AI products, there are ethical issues – for example, in recording and training your own avatar, there could be potential for abuse. Where does the new content reside?  Is your image now in the Synthesia cloud and not actually owned or controlled by you?  Just wondering… 

Aerial Robotics Beyond Drones: Interview with Bob Dahlstrom, Innovators Series

We tend to think of drones as the only kinds of aerial robots, but Apellix has developed an aerial robot that can be used to deliver products instead of simply sensing or collecting images. Welcome to an interview with Bob Dahlstrom, CEO and founder of Apellix, a dynamic, new aerial robotics company.

1.  What is your name and your relation to innovation and robotics? 
Bob Dahlstrom – Growing up working at my parents’ hardware store from age 12 to my early 20’s provided me hands-on experience with the practical needs of people to fix, repair, or replace a wide variety of items – often with innovative mechanical solutions. Later, in the mid-80s while working in a “clean room” at an integrated circuit manufacturer and writing software code for the first time, I made the connection that the world was destined to have software interact with and instruct hardware, as we moved from physical and electrical mechanical systems to software-controlled systems.

Founding a software company in the 1990s that was finally, 13 years later, an “overnight success” provided me more exposure to software and is where I became unequivocally adamant that software was “eating the world”. Apellix is my first robotics company. To me, robots are software. Looking at things through a software lens, I believe aerial robotics (drones) are just flying computers and with the right sensors and data - and most importantly, software - they can be made to do most anything.

2.  What is Apellix?  How did you get started with it, and what is its mission? 
Apellix is a technology company focused on creating systems to keep workers safe. We are passionate about designing and creating software-controlled robotic systems that keep people out of harm’s way and save lives.

We live in a time when the fantastic has become ordinary. No longer do we have to imagine mythical machines and buildings out of science fiction movies. Our telephones are pocket computers now. Why are people still hanging from skyscrapers cleaning windows, or working from scaffolding cleaning and coating structures, when we have robotic systems that can do the work safer and most likely more effective and efficiently.

3.  How do aerial robots work and how are they different from drones?
This is a FANTASTIC question –An Aerial Robot includes a “robotic arm” and an “end effector”. A “robotic arm” is a type of mechanical arm, usually programmable, with similar functions to a human arm. Robotic arms may include a manipulator and may be connected by joints allowing either rotational motion (such as in an articulated robot) or translational (linear) displacement or can be a lance or probe. The terminus or end of the arm is called the “end effector” or probe tip. End effectors are the device at the end of a robotic arm, designed to interact with the environment. The exact nature of this device depends on the application of the robot.

An Aerial Robotics system includes a robotic arm with an end effector AND the ability to fly close to, touch, or modify a structure or surface. Just the fact of having an arm with an applicator / end effector on it requires flights wherein the lift platform (the drone) must fly with precision close to structures. Drones, and all aircraft in general, are designed to fly away from potential obstacles, not close to them.

4.  What are the main applications of the Apellix robots?
Apellix is an early-stage company and the leader in aerial robotics. It is the only company with proven capability to measure the thickness of steel on a 300’ flare stack or clean and paint a wind turbine 260’ off the ground. With proprietary circuitry, software, and power management systems, our Apellix-designed drones serve as industrial tools capable of all-day continuous work.

Our initial product, currently available for pre-orders, is in the field of contact-based Nondestructive Testing (NDT) for evaluating the properties of materials in industrial and infrastructure assets such as bridges, ships, oil & gas refineries, and more. For example, we test the thickness of steel or the protective coating of a bridge to ensure it is structurally sound.

The Apellix SmartBee™ platform provides the capability for multiple types of Nondestructive Testing. One example, designed for a ship manufacturer, conducts dry-film thickness (i.e. paint thickness) testing pursuant to SSPC-PA2 standards on vertical ferrous surfaces at height. The aircraft is piloted manually to the initial test location where the computer operator (pilot) engages the software using our PC / tablet-based user interface, and a pre-programmed sampling process begins. All actual testing is conducted under 100% computer control. During the sampling process, test results are provided in real-time to the operator on the base station (computer laptop or tablet), displaying the actual paint thickness measurement and whether the surface is compliant. Once the sampling is complete, the aircraft returns to a safe position and awaits pilot commands to direct it to the next location. For each measurement, environmental data, GPS positioning, project data, photo confirmation, and related aircraft data are stored for one-step download to an Excel spreadsheet (csv). Aircraft performance and use data are also tracked via Internet of Things (IoT) for predictive maintenance and development purposes.

5.  Why did you choose the robots to be aerial rather than placing them on scaffolding or some other fixed structure where they could move back and forth, but not have to be airborne? 
By freeing robots from the ground and allowing them to operate in 3-dimensional space, we have created a set of affordances not available to ground-based or place-bound robotics. One example of this would be painting a large cargo or cruise ship. Currently, to paint the side of a ship, it takes a crew of 30 workers 4 to 5 days to set up the scaffolding, paint, and remove the scaffolding. The paint is applied is 6 to 8’ sections (the length of a painter’s reach without moving to a new section of scaffolding) and “feathered” to ensure proper coverage at the edges of where a person can reach. This results in a large number of areas where the paint is overlapped. A tethered aerial robotic system, with paint and power on the ground, would allow painting to start in the far-left corner of the ship’s hull, move horizontally to the far-right corner, and turn off the paint. It would then move down to allow a 12” overlap, turn on the paint and proceed horizontally to the left. This efficiency enables a much better paint job with fewer potential failure points.

Apellix has conducted proof-of-concept testing in which our aerial robots successfully delivered water-based coatings using 3300psi industrial airless pump systems on vertical surfaces. We have tested at flow rates up to 1.6 gallons per minute. Apellix is currently conducting proof of concept testing where our aerial robots provide no-touch cleaning using non-combustible cleaning solutions and pressurized water rinsing. We expect to expand testing to include limited blasting as well. Apellix is currently seeking industry partners to support this additional testing and development.

6.  How do you compensate for wind and humidity when you are working on large ships, equipment, bridges, etc?
Apellix aerial robotic systems use large, computer-controlled, heavy-lift multi-rotor drones outfitted with various sensors and functions to allow precisely controlled flight close to structures. Manual control of such systems is unable to accomplish the precise flying and maneuvers required, thus software-controlled flight is crucial. While drones often operate in 15-knot winds, their operations are confined to keeping a tight camera focus on the target, so wind moving the drone a foot or two in any direction is not critical. In an aerial robotic system, such as those used by Apellix, flying inches from a structure a sudden gust of wind can be catastrophic.

The amount of time it takes to see something and move your finger is approximately two-tenths of a second. In that amount of time, a computer with a standard Intel Core i7 or similar processor can make 63 million calculations (~315,000 millions of instructions per second – MIPS), thus computer control can allow an amazing degree of control and stability, even in high winds.

As I like to say, aerial robots (and drones) are flying computers and, with the right sensors, they are data gathering machines. Each Apellix aerial robot has a full onboard computer with an Intel x86 processor, a full server-based operating system, and a custom-built Apellix sensor board, giving it the ability to collect a lot of real-time data, including environmental variables such as ambient air temperature, barometric pressure, relative humidity, atmospheric levels of oxygen and gases and more.

The Apellix WorkerBee™ is under development to enable aerial applications for cleaning and for spraying paint. Part of the efficiency of painting is what’s called the transfer efficiency ratio (Transfer Efficiency (TE)  = Weight of Material on the Target (WT) / Weight of Material Sprayed (WS) x 100%). For example, the average material loss is 30%, but moving the spray nozzle 7” from the optimal distance changes material loss to 50% or more. By knowing the humidity, temperature, recommended application rules, and more, we can calculate the optimal distance for the spray nozzle from the structure being coated, thus minimizing over-spray and under-spray.

7.  How do you overcome the limitations of a) battery life; and b) weight of the cargo.  Paint is heavy... 
Paint is heavy, and so are batteries. Our solution, in addition to the software-controlled aerial lift platform (the drone,) is to keep them on the ground and utilize an umbilical cord to send power and material up to the aerial systems. This allows for theoretical all-day operations, something needed in an industrial aerial robotics system. Of course, depending on the use case and customers’ requirements, we can also offer a non-tethered system for small touch-up or repairs.

8.  What have your experiences been thus far? 
The interaction of people and robots is complex and growing more sophisticated all the time. Apellix painting platforms are run by operators on the ground. They work at heights, without putting the operator in danger, and allow the work to be performed to greater precision via software control than a human can do. It replaces hours of work by humans. But it doesn’t take human control out of the loop.

It does change lives. Robotics are reducing occupational hazards. They’re saving our tax dollars for the corrosion prevention of public assets, such as highway bridges and battleships. They’re saving private dollars on protection of buildings, ships, above-ground storage tanks, and oil rigs.

Executives from around the world are flying into Jacksonville, Florida to speak with us about our innovations, we’re winning local, state, national, and international startup and robotic competitions, and industry awards such as a 2017 Innovation of the Year from the National Association of Corrosion Engineers (NACE).

It’s amazing working with magical flying machines every day. The technical work we do at Apellix today is possible due to the great work and science of those that have come before us. But more importantly, to me personally, the most memorable experience can be summed up from a recent conversation I had with the CEO of a company in the oil & gas space who said; “Bob, I’ve had to tell 5 mothers their sons are never coming home again”. If we can engineer out the risks of falls, injuries, and deaths from the job site and prevent these types of conversations from happening, that is a win for everybody.

Perhaps most satisfying to the A Team (Team Apellix) is that we’re adding to the greater body of knowledge, specifically data on the maintenance of expensive assets. We’re helping to save lives. And we’re at very least winning battles in the never-ending war on corrosion.

9.  What is the future for Apellix? 
Apellix will continue to work on and refine its SmartBee™ and its WorkerBee™ platforms and add additional features and functions. For example, now that we control, with great precision, the flight of an aerial robotic system in close proximities of structures and even touch structures we can add most any type of end effector or tip to the robotic arm. Thus, devices that are currently handheld and touched to the concrete on a bridge to measure corrosion of the rebar embedded into the structure can be placed on the Apellix aerial robotic system. This eliminates the need to rappel down a structure or utilize cranes or scaffolding to climb up to areas of the structure to take the readings.
As the advantages of the Apellix aerial robotic platform become more widely known and understood we fully expect to learn of a multitude of items of different types that can create value when carried or added to the platform.

The future is bright, keep your eye on Apellix.

Visit the Apellix YouTube Channel or follow them on Twitter

The Fourth Industrial Revolution

We could be on the verge of a new Industrial Revolution -- a Fourth Industrial Revolution -- and it will be one that will use new technologies to restore and revitalize earth resources, and it will start with water.

I believe that the Fourth Industrial Revolution will be an outgrowth of planetary exigency rather than human convenience or greed, although we will most certainly witness the earlier Industrial Revolutions’ attributes of curiosity, energy, as we take that enthusiastic plunge “unto the breech” and encounter unanticipated boons and disruptions.

Use new technologies and techniques to:

· Rebuild the earth
· Renew wasted, squandered, or adulterated resources
· Recreate and regenerate resources through new sources (connate water, etc.)
· Regenerate minerals and depleted resources through new processes (chemical / biochemical / biogenic, as well as mechanical means)
· Revitalize habitats, renew distressed flora and fauna

We must become “merchants of light” (Sir Francis Bacon’s The New Atlantis) as we transport knowledge from one place to another. We can do it.

Brief and Ideosyncratic View of the Three Industrial Revolutions

Here is how I’m classifying the Industrial Revolutions:

The First Industrial Revolution took place between around 1770 and 1830 had to do with steam engines and the kinds of innovations that made cross-continental transportation and factories possible. It included machines that made factories possible, along with steam power that enabled travel by steamship, railway, and canal (built by machines powered by steam). It fostered innovations in banking and in the U.S., westward expansion.

The Second Industrial Revolution took place from around 1880 – 1910, and had involved the incorporation of electricity, the internal combustion engine, and communication / recording devices.  It also included innovations in infrastructure in cities such as sewers, lighting, and water systems that made cities much more hygienic and less noxious. Factories, automation, and social mobility paved the way for dramatic upheavals in the social order, with both utopian and dystopian outcomes (Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto and early Soviet avant-garde artists could see the promise of liberating, flattening effects of technology, while many dystopian pessimists suggested technology would precipitate apocalypses and despotic surveillance societies in a way that predate Huxley and Orwell).

The Third Industrial Revolution took place from the 1960s through the early 2000s, and involved computer technology, high speed communications infrastructure, and the development of new materials, all of which made it possible to change the nature of work, economic structure, and the way we know ourselves through extreme acceleration to globalization as well as consumerism.

The Cost of a Revolution: Environmental Carnage

All three industrial revolutions were highly disruptive, which was a godsend for the visionary or simply well-positioned winners, while being absolutely disastrous for the members of society who were in the way or who possessed raw materials or assets necessary for the continued flowering of their particular industrial revolution.

All three industrial revolutions resulted in vast expanses of earth being laid waste, and the resources either squandered or subjected to outright plunder. At each step, most of the population was aware of the problems (see Elizabeth Gaskell, Benjamin Disraeli, and others describe the air and water pollution in northern England in industrial centers such as Manchester), and yet all were helplessly in thrall to the jobs, and the social change that seemed to promise more self-determination to those individuals with pluck, intelligence, and the drive to education themselves, all the while tempering the getting of resources with socially-inculcated values and ethics (for good or for ill).

Now, as we careen through the second decade of the 21st century, for every initiative to conserve, recycle, or reuse resources seems to be met with an economic shock that simply reinforces John Maynard Keynes’s observation that policies are shaped to benefit people in the short run, because in the long run we’re all dead.

I’ve observed even the most ardent environmentalist and “small footprinter” turned into a grotesque consumer of resources upon the knowledge that he/she needs certain procedures in order to live.

And, how many of us have moved from a small town to a mega-city for economic opportunity? Is a Mexico City, Houston, or Cairo in any way environmentally sustainable?  Of course not, but the fruits of the Third Industrial Revolution bamboozle us into thinking that it is.

The industrial revolutions’ fruits have also led to a shocking level of psychological hubris.  For example, just to cite one, in the jouissance of the new Baby Boomers came to consider themselves above the eternal verities, whatever those are; most having been lost in the disintegration of family and social bonds, along with the deconstruction of wisdom literature. This is not to say that questioning and deconstructive philosophy are bad things, just that the vacuum left behind was immediately filled with sensation, novelty, consumer goods.  Nationalistic ardor, patriotism, religion and family became just another set of products to be hucksterized and then worn on one’s person or placed in one’s home as a fashion statement or a lucky charm.

To add to the confusion, we have also seen a government that ostensibly protects the environment enact policies that encourage people to become passive consumers of junk food, junk images, junk ideas, and junk substances, as they weave between the formal and informal economies to the point that they lose sight that once upon a time, they were born with a brain, wits, communication skills, and at least some modicum of self-determination.

In certain ways, we can’t blame anyone for what seems to be a shocking level of blindness and unwillingness to examine their own lives. After all, extreme social inequality is one of the first fruits of all three industrial revolutions, for all the promises made that technology will result in a level playing field and equal participation.

With accelerated communication technologies, computers, and the Internet, the Third Industrial Revolution has exerted forces that have made it difficult for a person to make an honest self-assessment or to slow down long enough to examine their own life.

And, we all know the value of an unexamined life (Plato’s Apology of Socrates).

Enter the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Renovation, Renewal, Revitalization

I believe that the Fourth Industrial Revolution will involve the renovation, renewal, and revitalization of squandered, wasted, and adulterated natural resources, and it will start with water.

We will use the new computing techniques and the ability to harness collective minds, ideas, and muscle (concatenated computers) to develop new ways to replenish earth resources.

Again, it will start with water, then move to once depleted resources, and include air and soil.

It will require reversals of thinking and the willingness to identify what we viewed as a waste product, and then how to transform it into something that we will used to replenish despoiled or depleted resources.

The first perhaps most obvious has to do with water. If we can use water that is co-produced with natural gas, oil, and which must be pumped from mines, then we can purify it economically and use it to replenish and recharge surface water, which will then recharge the aquifer.

The second may have to do with ways we currently generate electricity and warm our homes. Improvements in alternative energy (solar, geothermal, wind) will be made.

· Work with mathematics to accommodate calculations that simplify working in complex systems so that modeling and potentially changing /materially altering reality is possible

· Decision-making that thinks of long-term impacts, and shaped by values and ethics that reflect a profound respect for all individuals, and for individual effort.

· Revitalizing refinding lost metals and minerals (zinc, lead, copper).

· Use the co-products of all processes for building materials and design for right-size communities

Future “Science Fiction Today, Reality Tomorrow” Elements:

· Airborne farms and crop sky-canopies can help air quality in cities.

· Require flower gardens on every rooftop and on all balconies

· Smart Life: Easily programmable monitoring and surveillance systems

· Expanded voice, image, shape, face recognition embedded in mirrors

· A handheld device (rather than implantable device) that can log and archive your behaviors

· Hovercraft / tricopters and quad copters for trips across expanses where there are not too many power lines or problems (Nevada desert, Texas Panhandle, lakes)

· 3D printers that are also instantaneous recyclers

· Personal paper product sanitizer and reconstitutor (paper waste automatically biogenically cleansed / sterilized and reconstituted into paper plates, bowls, cups, dog dishes, boxes, gift boxes, mailing and shipping containers, etc.)

· Household 3D printer for plastics (sanitized, reconstitute into frequently used and needed items – plastic wrap? Boxes? Storage? Sandals? Drink bottles?

· Elemental Harvester and Scavenger: Industrial-site specific materials scavenger for collecting metals, etc.

These will all be explored in future installments and meditations.