Looking Glass leverages ChatGPT for holographic cartoon animals

Two things have always seemed true about Brooklyn-based 3D display startup Looking Glass. First of all, their technology is really cool. I’ve seen him in person many times over the years, and he always impresses. Second, I can’t figure out who it’s for. A major pitfall for business innovation is that both of these things can be true at the same time.

32-inch and 65-inch systems are prohibitively expensive, even for many enterprise buyers. At $399, the Desktop Portrait is much more accessible, but the feature set needs to be expanded. I know one person who bought one to show off their NFTs – as niche as that market has always seemed, I think it’s even smaller now considering everything that’s happened in the last two years. If you own an NFT, hide your shame.

For its part, Looking Glass continues to push the boundaries of what can be done with these displays. At the high end is sophisticated 3D imaging for various professions, and for the aforementioned portraiture? The startup understandably took a long look at the world of generative AI (as we all have recently) and offered conversational holograms powered by ChatGPT responses. He named the creatures “Liteforms”.

“Looking Glass is well known for developing the most realistic holographic solutions that bring 3D digital content to life, all without the need for headsets,” co-founder and CEO Shawn Frayne said in a prepared statement. “But over the past few years, we’ve been prototyping new ways not only to create and view holograms, but also to communicate with them. With all the major advances made with major language models like ChatGPT, it is now possible! We couldn’t be more excited to see how brands around the world are using Liteforms to connect their fans to the magic of “living” talking holograms.

Looking Glass teased the cartoon characters in late March, when Frayne tweeted a video of a conversation between him and a tough-talking bunny character. “The Rickroll test is the new Turing test,” he writes. “Holograms x #ChatGPT = Uncle Rabbit.

The company will reveal more about the characters during the AWE event in early June. As for where this is all going, one wonders if there might be a future for smart assistants like Alexa and Google Home after all.