Someone help me out please. Who was the 90s sci-fi author who predicted actors would go away and all movies would be made using cgi /ai? She had characters in the book, watching movies starring Humphrey Bogart and John Wayne, as detectives solving crimes (and so on). She also predicted “ractors”, people who act in front of a camera, so a computer can use their motion and expressions to animate a character on screen in real time.
My feeble brain, I swear… In any case, thanks to her, knew this day was coming. Gonna be a wild ride though.
The author you’re thinking of is Neal Stephenson, and the book is “Snow Crash” published in 1992. In the book, he coined the term “ractors” for actors who perform in front of motion-capture cameras to create lifelike animations. He also predicted the use of CGI and AI in filmmaking to create movies with long-dead actors.
I haven’t read it and the Wikipedia article doesn’t seem to mention virtual actors, so it could be wrong. At least it didn’t hallucinate a fake book.
Oh snap, thanks - I was mixing up The Diamond Age with another book, yes. Ractors are from Stephenson, but I also had another author’s books in my head. See? Feeble mind. There’s still another woman author I need to track down and re-read here.
Remake is a 1995 science fiction novel by Connie Willis. It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1996. The book displays a dystopic near future, when computer animation and sampling have reduced the movie industry to software manipulation.
I asked Perplexity with “What is the scifi book from the 90s that had “ractors,” where a person would act in front of a camera and a computer would animate a CG model?”and got (what other commenters are saying) is the correct answer:
The science fiction book from the 90s that featured “ractors,” where a person would act in front of a camera and a computer would animate a CG model, is not directly mentioned in the provided search results. However, based on the description of “ractors” and the context of computer animation and CG models, it seems you might be referring to “The Diamond Age” by Neal Stephenson, published in 1995. In this novel, the term “ractor” (short for “interactive actor”) is used to describe performers who participate in interactive theater through virtual reality environments, which could align with the concept of acting in front of a camera to animate a CG model. However, since this specific detail is not found in the search results, this answer is based on existing knowledge outside of the provided sources.
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Someone help me out please. Who was the 90s sci-fi author who predicted actors would go away and all movies would be made using cgi /ai? She had characters in the book, watching movies starring Humphrey Bogart and John Wayne, as detectives solving crimes (and so on). She also predicted “ractors”, people who act in front of a camera, so a computer can use their motion and expressions to animate a character on screen in real time.
My feeble brain, I swear… In any case, thanks to her, knew this day was coming. Gonna be a wild ride though.
According to Le Chat,
I haven’t read it and the Wikipedia article doesn’t seem to mention virtual actors, so it could be wrong. At least it didn’t hallucinate a fake book.
Oh snap, thanks - I was mixing up The Diamond Age with another book, yes. Ractors are from Stephenson, but I also had another author’s books in my head. See? Feeble mind. There’s still another woman author I need to track down and re-read here.
Aha! I found it –
Remake by Connie Willis
https://www.worldswithoutend.com/novel.asp?ID=86
Great book, well worth reading still.
https://archive.is/ZTU90
The Atlantic | Neal Stephenson’s Most Stunning Prediction
The sci-fi legend coined the term metaverse. But he was most prescient about our AI age. By Matteo Wong
<cough> William Gibson <cough>
It just cited the wrong Neal Stephenson book, so not way off.
Great book, eh. So many interesting ideas presented in there.
I asked Perplexity with “What is the scifi book from the 90s that had “ractors,” where a person would act in front of a camera and a computer would animate a CG model?”and got (what other commenters are saying) is the correct answer: