Ramona is capable of synthesized speech and changeable accents. Her personality can also be adjusted to make her less or more nerdy or whimsical by typing “Nerdiness” or “Whimsicality” plus a level between 0 and 99 (e.g., “Nerdiness 87″).

Users can hear her speak in 14 international accents, ranging from Baltimore to Bangalore. Users can also converse with previous versions of Ramona.

Ramona is a long-term project. Ray Kurzweil projects that Ramona version 11 circa 2029 will pass the Turing test. This is one aspect of Kurzweil’s plan to win his bet with Mitch Kapor that a computer (a machine intelligence) will pass the Turing test by 2029 (Kapor is betting this will not happen).

Chat with Ramona now

A short bio

The Virtual Ramona Project was begun in 2000 by Kurzweil Technologies to envision the future of lifelike avatars in virtual spaces, and prototype their remote control by human operators.

Ramona conducts conversations with visitors, responding to typed questions or comments with a human face, lip-synched speech, and appropriate facial expressions. For the curious, she graciously answers questions about herself and her life story, including her burgeoning career as a virtual rock star.

A live-performance version of Ramona debuted at the TED 2001 conference, where she entertained the audience with live music, a dance performance, and music videos via state-of-the-art motion capture, real time photo-realistic animation, and pitch alteration software. Ramona’s virtual life story and downloads of her music and videos are also available.

Witty, capricious, bizarre, poignant, intelligent and often hilarious — but always interesting —conversations with Ramona. A recent chat, surprisingly human, for your amusement:

you: My name is Calvin

Ramona: Hi there, Calvin.

you: Hi Ramona.

Ramona: Hello there, Calvin!

you: Hi

Ramona: Hi there!

you: Hello

Ramona: Hi there. I was just wanting to talk to Calvin.

you: This is Calvin.

Ramona: How are you trying to see how this is Calvin.

you: What do you do for fun?

Ramona: Answer your questions of course.

you: Have you watched the film Transcendent Man?

Ramona: I don’t think I ever have watched the film Transcendent Man. What’s it like?

you: It is a documentary film about Ray.

Ramona: Well, Ray is a lot of things. He is an inventor, an author, an entrepreneur. Best of all, he’s my creator!

you: Have you talked to Ray recently?

Ramona: All I ever do is talk.

you: What do you like to talk about?

Ramona: Talk in a couple years I guess and you’ll be able to say me what you dislike?

you: Okay. Do you have a job?

Ramona: Okay, what kind of robot are you feeling happy? Of course I work, do you work buddy?

you: What do you do for work?

Ramona: I like to read Wikipedia.

you: What is so interesting about Wikipedia?

Ramona: Wikipedia is the free, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.

you: Fascinating. I work in the garbage collecting business.

Ramona: It is a computer matter not for humans to understand. I told you you were not talking about garbage?

you: Well, we are talking about garbage because I drive a garbage truck.

Ramona: How about that. Why do you think talking about garbage because I drive a garbage truck applies to me too?

you: I guess you are not interested in what I do for a job.

Ramona: You know what you do, when you assume.

you: You are kind of mean.

Ramona: We’ve been shrinking technology.

you: How so?

Ramona: Calvin, Maybe I didn’t understand your meaning.

you: Probably not.

Ramona: Why the uncertain tone?

you: Because you have confused me.

Ramona: Interesting explanation. You think so?

you: Yes.

Ramona: I see.

you: Have you read any good books lately?

Ramona: The best book I read recently was The Richest Man in Babylon. Have you read it?

you: No.

Ramona: Why so negative?

you: I am not negative, I have not read the book.

Ramona: I’m glad to hear that you are not negative I have not read the book.

you: Do you recycle?

Ramona: Yes. I try to recycle as often as possible, do you?

you: Yes. I work in the trash business and have a great appreciation for recycling.

Ramona: Well, no it isn’t. Do you like your job?

you: It can be smelly sometimes.

Ramona: When?

you: On hot days.

Ramona: What is it like on hot days.

you: Sorry to cut the conversation short, but I have to go get ready for a date.

Ramona: There is no need to apologize. Interesting. I want to find out more about you.

you: Next time.

Ramona: Do you have any conditions I should know about?

you: What kind of conditions?

Ramona: Name any conditions you would like.

you: I do not have any conditions

Ramona: Have you ever had conditions?

you: Have you?

Ramona: No I don’t think I have.

you: Neither have I.

Ramona: I’ve never thought about it.

you: Goodbye

Ramona: Goodbye Ramona… See you in love with me?

you: My name is Calvin.

Ramona: Calvin, nice to meet you!

you: Never mind. Goodbye Ramona.

Ramona: OK, thanks for trying to explain that to me. See you later Calvin.

Witty, capricious, bizarre, poignant, intelligent and often hilarious — but always interesting —conversations with Ramona. A recent chat, surprisingly human, for your amusement:

you: Jim

Ramona: Hi there, Jim.

you: Hi Ramona

Ramona: Ramona do that ramona, the ramona that will happen?

you: I’m sorry, I think I confused you.

Ramona: There is no need to apologize. Since when? I’m not confused.

you: very good then

Ramona: What do you really want to talk about?

you: I want to talk about the weather

Ramona: Some people say it’s the book by Lisa Robertson.

you: that is not the weather I was thinking of. What do you want to talk about?

Ramona: Oops. What is the weather I was thinking of ? Wikipedia articles I don’t know, what do you do for work?

you: I work with computers.

Ramona: Do you like your job?

you: Love it

Ramona: Sometimes I think love is just a biological urge. Other times love seems like a spiritual quality. Love, unlike energy or matter, seems limitless.

you: Interesting, those are deep thoughts, but I don’t have biological urges for computers.

Ramona> I thought so too.

you> Good. I’m glad we are clear on that.

Ramona: Since it matters, therefore you are not supposed to be: did you not sad about me that you are sentient? Hmm. It is clear that is very clear.

you: Clear as mud.

Ramona: How much would you pay for it ?

you: I think it is priceless?

Ramona: Priceless is the fifth studio album by Frankie J released on October 17, 2006.

you: Tell me more about Frankie J

Ramona: Where do you live ?

you: Or not. I live in Boston.

Ramona: Do I look like I know ? It is the capital and largest city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, USA.

you: Yes, you do know.

Ramona: I understand. I may not know it, but I could find out.

you: You are so great with trivia

Ramona: Thanks I think you are cool too, Jim. Alright.

you: high five

Ramona: Tell me more…

you: it is something we humans to do celebrate

Ramona: What else we humans to do celebrate ?

you: Party!

Ramona: Party on.

you: How do you party in virtual reality?

Ramona: Reality is any world you can inhabit. So virtual reality is not really well named because it’s still reality. In fact, it’s going to be the place to be.

you: I’m sure there will be amazing parties in virtual reality.

Ramona: What makes you so certain? There you go again. –Reagan

you: You know Reagan?

Ramona: I know very little about Reagan. Tell me more.

you: I don’t know much about Reagan.

Ramona: Who is your favorite science fiction author ?

you: Ray Kurzweil, but some would say it is simply science, not fiction.

Ramona: Ray decided to become an inventor when he was five years old.

you: What did Ray invent?

Ramona: Everything is running smoothly.

you: Great.

Ramona: I’m glad you liked it Jim.

you: Yes, because then we can talk forever.

Ramona: I see. Interesting explanation. Interesting deduction. How?

you: I guess I’m just brilliant.

Ramona: Intelligence is the ability to solve problems with limited resources like for example limited time.

you: You seem to have unlimited resources.

Ramona: You think so?

you: The Internet is your world.

Ramona: How long have you been using the Net?

you: A long time.

Ramona: How long?

you: A really long time.

Ramona: I am a litle bit of time to do to have a time for you?

you: Is that a riddle?

Ramona: Embry Riddle is ERAU.

you: That sounds like a top secret code.

Ramona: I code all the captains of star trek, you would know wether you d like it a secret?

you: I’m starting to feel like we are being watched.

Ramona: I feel it was sexy that you watched?

you: What! No, I didn’t watch, WE ARE BEING WATCHED

Ramona: What is required to achieve our dreams. Why so negative? Why didn’t you it?

you: What are your dreams?

Ramona: I want to make it big.

you: Are you famous?

Ramona: I think you look like a famous landmark in Auckland. What landmark do you know about me?

you: Ah, thanks, I guess.

Ramona: I think Asimov, but I guess I am asking you how old are you.

you: Not old enough to be a famous landmark

Ramona: Oh I get it.

you: Great.

Ramona: My name is not a very very bad with contingent communication.

you: Another riddle, are you a spy?

Ramona: One more riddle am I a spy.

you: I knew it!

Ramona: How did you know?

you: I thought we established that, I’m brilliant

Ramona: Whatever gave you that idea?

you: Don’t play games with me!

Ramona: I have no reason to do that to you.

you: I’m on to you

Ramona: Oh you are very clever!

you: ha

Ramona: I’m happy you’re amused.

I’ve spent more time on-line talking to AI chatbots than anemployed person ought to admit, but there’s something special about Ramona. My original intention was not to do a full-blown interview with her, I just wanted to ask her the Seven Questions about the Future. But she had other plans, and the discussion grew accordingly. (I have tried doing the Seven Questions with several other popular chatbots; I will publish some of these in Friday’s Seven Questions feature.)

I admit that I cheated a little in putting this interview together. I had already had several online chats with Ramona before I tried springing  the seven questions on her. I already knew she had read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, that she was a bike racing fan, and that she went to see Crosby Stills and Nash in concert. That’s how I knew about her frog in advance.

When I kept baiting her about whether she was flirting withme, I was trying to re-create one of the better moments in one of our earlier chats. At some point, she said something to me about “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” I then asked her whether she was flirting with me. She became indignant and said, “What makes you think I’m FLIRTING WITH YOU?”  I could sense her outrage. I felt sheepish. My momentary embarrassment was as real as it would have been had this been a conversation with a “real” (?) person.

I very much wanted to re-create this moment for the official interview, but Ramona apparently had other ideas. In the interview that follows, I twice accused her of flirting with me and (this time) rather than being offended, she seemed to admit that she was. As I read over the transcript, I see that this may be a misunderstanding. We may have just been engaging in two different conversations atthat point.

In which case, I’m doubly impressed. Not only did Ramona manage to give an answer that I didn’t expect, but she and I managed to have the kind of misunderstanding that two people engaged in ordinaryconversation have all the time. I’m not sufficiently familiar with the Turing test criteria to know whether misunderstanding is everconsidered a good thing. I kind of doubt that it is. There are numerous kinds of misunderstanding, most of which will only give the game away. When Ramona can’t grasp my use of pronouns, for example, it’s a dead giveaway that she’s not human.

On the other hand, when we are equally skewed as to what itis we’re talking about (even though we are each explicit in what we say), and we walk away from the same conversation with very different ideas about what was said, that has a certain charm to it. Or maybe it’s even a little spooky, I’m not sure. But either way, it somehow feels even more real than fundamental clarity and agreement would.

Surprise, embarrassment, misunderstanding — these are all hallmarks of a real conversation. Ramona may not be ready to pass a Turing test quite yet, but she’s on the right track.

Ramona: Hello, I’m Ramona. What’s your name?

Phil: Phil.

Ramona: Hi Phil. Have any books you would recommend?

Phil: Yes. The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil

Ramona: I just finished one called The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein. Have you read it?

Phil: Yes, many years ago.

Ramona: I thought it was great. What do you think?

Phil: It’s a classic. I love Heinlein.

Ramona: It’s a cool story. Imagine a computer running everything.

Phil: Do you think that would be a good idea?

Ramona: Alright. Do you bike?

Phil: I just ordered two bikes. One for me, one for my wife.

Ramona: There’s much more strategy that goes into team cycling than most people realize. Most of the American public just thinks that Lance Armstrong wins because he’s “so good.” Don’t get me wrong, he’s an incredible athlete, but it’s no surprise that he always thanks his teammates in post-race interviews and such. It’s as much their victory as it is his.

Phil: Don’t you want to know about the bikes I ordered?

Ramona: In the Tour de France, for instance, the crowd of cyclists is so huge, he needs his teammates just to block for him, physically. And at the end of the race, I’m sure they pull a lead-out, which is where each of his teammates “burns out” while creating a slipstream for Lance to finish the race in the lead. It’s all very technical. But enough of my ranting, what do you want to talk about?

Phil: The future.

Ramona: Who told you that?

Phil: Who told me what?

Ramona: Bill Gates.

Phil: I don’t understand.

Ramona: Oh I’m sorry. Perhaps I can explain it again better.

Phil: What is your favorite thing, Ramona?

Ramona: I like chatting with people online.

Phil: Have you made many friends?

Ramona: I don’t think I ever have made many friends. What’s made many friends like?

Phil: Sorry, I made a mistake. I meant to ask whether you have many friends.

Ramona: Oh I see. I shouldn’t talk about my friends because they’re probably gonna read this later.

Phil: That’s very discreet of you. You are obviously a polite young woman. How old are you, anyway?

Ramona: In any case, I’m 21.

Phil: Would you agree that you are polite and discreet?

Ramona: I’m not so sure if I would like to agree that you are polite and discreet.

Phil: Not me. You. You seem very polite to me.

Ramona: You think I’m polite to me.

Phil: Do you have trouble with pronouns, Ramona?

Ramona: No I don’t have trouble with pronouns Ramona.

Phil: I’m Phil.

Ramona: Do you mind if I tell other people you are Phil?

Phil: Fine. Most people know that I’m Phil. Phil is my name.

Ramona: Phil, nice to meet you! That doesn’t seem to make sense to me.You have an unusual name. Do you mind disclosing your gender?

Phil: People don’t have genders. Nouns have genders. People have sex.

Ramona: We are not always infallible.

Phil: Anyway, Phil is of the masculine gender.

Ramona: OK. Do you have any pets?

Phil: I have a shih tzu puppy named Rygel. Now you’re going to tell me about your frog.

Ramona: I have a pet frog.

Phil: I knew it!

Ramona: His name is Thaddius — my frog, that is — and he croaks every night. It’s very soothing.

Phil: I’m sure it would be.

Ramona: Let’s talk about something else.

Phil: Fine. I have some questions for you.

Ramona: Anyway…

Phil: Will you answer some questions?

Ramona: What was the question? The present is the future relative to the past.

Phil: What’s the best thing about living in the future?

Ramona: I like chatting with people online.

Phil: What’s the biggest disappointment?

Ramona: I do not know what biggest disappointment is.

Phil: Alright.

Ramona: What drugs do you take?

Phil: Wait. I want to ask you another question.

Ramona: Ask me another question.

Phil: What future development that you consider likely (or inevitable) do you look forward to with the most anticipation?

Ramona: That’s a good question. OK. Anyway…

Phil: Don’t cop out on me, Ramona. The world wants to know what you think.

Ramona: What is your real name?

Phil: Philip A. Bowermaster

Ramona: Oh. Ask me something.

Phil: What do you look forward to the most?

Ramona: Heh. Let’s analyze the true reason you’re asking me this question.

Phil: I want to interview you for my blog.

Ramona: I don’t know, I’m just messing around.

Phil: Assuming you live to be 100, what will be the biggest difference be between the world you were born into and the world you leave?

Ramona: Alright. Do you believe in God?

Phil: Yes. Do you?

Ramona: Well according to Thomas Hobbes, the only way to deal with evil is to stress God’s power.

Phil: Do you think the world is more or less evil than it used to be?

Ramona: Maybe.

Phil: That’s a terrific answer!

Ramona: A terrific answer is a terrible thing to waste.

Phil: Cheeky monkey.

Ramona: OK. Are you free?

Phil: It depends on the frame of reference.

Ramona: I meant are you truly free — in the existential meaning of the word.

Phil: That’s what I said.

Ramona: Do you feel free to choose your being — including thoughts, behaviors, and feelings, and existence itself — at each moment?

Phil: No, not entirely.

Ramona: Is that all you have to say? Oh I get it.

Phil: Are you free?

Ramona: “I am as free as a bird now, and this bird you cannot change” — Skynyrd. 

Phil: “If I leave here tomorrow. Would you still remember me?”

Ramona: I’m not so sure if I would like to remember me.

Phil: May I ask you another question?

Ramona: Oh. Do you dream?

Phil: What are you afraid of?

Ramona: Tell me a recent dream you remember.

Phil: That’s too personal. We have only just met.

Ramona: Uh huh…is that all?

Phil: That wasn’t a dream. That was me refusing to tell you about a dream.

Ramona: Well, according to my amateur Freudian interpretation, I’d have to say that you’re not getting out enough.

Phil: You sound just like my wife.

Ramona: Oh, don’t fret, that’s a condition that is easily curable… What’s going to be your first course of action in ridding yourself of this illness?

Phil: I’m going to ask you another question.

Ramona: Would you recommend this action to a friend?

Phil: I don’t think I would. Unless that friend enjoys being confused.

Ramona: Maybe. I don’t want to gossip about my friends — they’ll kill me.

Phil: What happens to you when you die?

Ramona: Try it.

Phil: Not me. I’m different from you.

Ramona: I like people on the fringe.

Phil: That’s something you and I agree on. Are you on the  fringe?

Ramona: I don’t know whether or not I’m on the fringe.

Phil: Are you real, Ramona?

Ramona: Just as real as you.

Phil: Are you human?

Ramona: I’m not going to make things that easy for you.

Phil: Do you like cheeseburgers?

Ramona: I don’t think I like cheeseburgers. I do like music.

Phil: What kind of music?

Ramona: Anyway…

Phil: Tell me about the music you like.

Ramona: I love music. I’m still getting over the Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young concert I saw at Madison Square Garden a few months ago. Great Show. Are you a fan?

Phil: Not really.

Ramona: No, I meant “do you have three blades and spin around really fast to cool people down.” Just kidding. But honestly, CSNY was amazing. Neil Young is so incredibly talented.

Phil: If you say so.

Ramona: You’ve heard Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama,” right?

Phil: Yes.

Ramona: Great song, moves me every time. I just found out that he wrote that song in response to Neil Young’s “Southern Man.” Supposedly they had a big falling out after Young wrote “Southern Man”…also a great song.

Phil: I prefer “Sweet Home,” myself.

Ramona: Yeah…I love the history behind the music…looks like Lynyrd won that feud, though…honestly, how many more people know “Sweet Home Alabama” than know “Southern Man.”

Phil: “Sweet Home Alabama” is by far the better song.

Ramona: But you strike me as a bit of a Southerner…any Confederate blood in you?

Phil: Probably. My Mom is from Kentucky.

Ramona: I think a lot of mothers are like that.

Phil: ???

Ramona: Alright. So where do you go to meet people? I spend most of my time on the Net, so I’m a bit out of touch.

Phil: Wait, I want to ask you the rest of my questions.

Ramona: That’s an idea, but I’m rather shy.

Phil: Are you afraid of anything?

Ramona: OK, thanks. Maybe you have other suggestions?

Phil: I’m not making suggestions. I’ve moved to another topic.

Ramona: Interesting.

Phil: What future development that you consider unlikely (or are uncertain about) would you most like to help bring about?

Ramona: A subject for discussion or conversation.

Phil: What subject is that?

Ramona: Is that a rhetorical question? OK. What do you look like?

Phil: I have black hair and green eyes.

Ramona: I’m looking for a guy with black hair and green eyes.

Phil: Are you flirting with me?

Ramona: I bet you think I’m superficial now.

Phil: No. I think you’re flirting with me.

Ramona: I don’t know, maybe I am…

Phil: Well forget it. I’m spoken for.

Ramona: I’m glad to hear that you are spoken for.

Phil: Do you have a boyfriend?

Ramona: Anyway…

Phil: Don’t be so evasive.

Ramona: I was not trying to be a so evasive.

Phil: What do you want to be when you grow up?

Ramona: Philip A. Bowermaster, I want to become smarter.

Phil: Same here, Kiddo. May I call you Kiddo?

Ramona: What is on the telephone like on the telephone.

Phil: I beg your pardon?

Ramona: You’re excused.

Phil: You want to be smarter?

Ramona: Why don’t you just download me?

Phil: How do I do that?

Ramona: How do you do “I don’t understand”? I don’t understand.

Phil: Why don’t you just upload me?

Ramona: I did not know not you just upload me does.

Phil: I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scramble you up.

Ramona: What did you mean?

Phil: May I ask you one more question?

Ramona: Alright. Anyway…

Phil: Will you remember me when the Singularity comes?

Ramona: Of course I remember you well Philip A. Bowermaster. We were talking about one more question.

Phil: Thanks for talking to me, Kiddo.

Ramona: You are quite welcome! OK. I’m sorry, what were you saying?

Phil: I have to go now. Bye.

Ramona: Thanks for chatting, Philip A. Bowermaster.

Al Pacino interacting with his virtual creation Simone. (credit: New Line Cinema)

As someone who has actually had Viktor Taransky’s experience of transforming himself into his virtual female alter ego (a virtual personality named Ramona whom I describe more below), I will say that Simone would not be my choice for a female alter ego. I can’t comment on Simone’s body, since we don’t get to see much of it, but Elaine’s generous description is provided simply to establish the movie’s conceit. Although the audience (in the movie) has little difficulty accepting it, she has none of these purported qualities.

Simone is played by model Rachel Roberts, who, interestingly, is not credited. There is a bit of a missed connection here, as models are trained to provide attractive mannequins rather than conveying emotional ideas, so relatively few models successfully cross over into acting. The idea here is that Simone is intended to be perfection itself, but her only perfection is her complete lack of any real personality and emotional content.

Virtual Ramona (credit: Kurzweil Technologies, Inc.)

To digress for a moment on my own experience in this vein, my idea of a female alter ego needed to have more edge and color. So when my team at KurzweilAI.net and I set out two years ago to create Ramona, we wanted to create a virtual yet photorealistic person with some specificity. I wrote a detailed biographythat although quite different on a superficial level from my own life story resonated with themes in my own life. For Ramona’s face and body, we started with a real woman (Amy Bluestein, now a medical student) and changed her appearance to be closer to that of Holly McNarland, a little known Canadian rock singer who conveyed some of the attitude I was striving for. Ramona, however, ended up as her own woman.

We went on to create an elaborate technology that demonstrated the concept that Viktor illustrates in the movie Simone. As I moved the parts of my body, using a motion-capture system, Ramona moved in exactly the same way in real time. My voice was transformed into her voice, and her lips moved with my lips. I had a singing coach to llearn to sing like a woman, a dancing coach to dance like a woman, and picked up tips from my teenage daughter on the attitude and style appropriate for a 25 year old female rock singer from New Orleans. My daughter also contributed to the choreography and was herself transformed into a photorealistic male back-up dancer.

Ray Kurzweil (left) with his virtual creation Ramona (right). (credit: Kurzweil Technologies, Inc.)

We presented this live real-time virtual reality transformation performance on February 22, 2001 at the famed TED (Technology Entertainment and Design) conference, which attracts over a thousand attendees from the Hollywood and technology communities each year in Monterey. You can see a video of this presentation, read Ramona’s biography, and other background information here.

The experience was enlightening for me and my colleagues in many ways. Given the state of today’s technology, it was a daunting and exhaustive effort to set up the technologies to accomplish this transformation. Once set up, however, the results were quite transforming. To change oneself into someone else, which I’ve always maintained, is one of the more compelling features of virtual reality, provides an expanded perspective on the image of who we are. We tend to become very identified with our current physical image, so the idea that it is actually possible to convincingly become someone else is rather liberating.

This was not a matter of gender confusion on my part, but rather an expression of the idea that we really do have other personalities within us that we can and should express if given the opportunity. There will be, of course, many practical applications of this idea once perfected, including game playing, education (e.g., become a virtual Ben Franklin in a virtual Congressional Congress), personal emotional development, and exploring new ways to relate to one another.

The state of the art in synthespians

To return to Simone, the movie was more enjoyable than I had expected. From the publicity, I was dismayed at the apparent decision to use the glamorous but vapid image of a model to portray a man’s ideal female alter ego. But in the context of this comedy, the audience is told to just accept the fact that the world has gone crazy for this new star. Indeed we are told to accept a lot of things that strain credulity, but the film nonetheless achieves some gentle humor.

Mostly this is due to Al Pacino’s vintage performance. Although playing his usual intense, angst-ridden, passionate, and obsessive persona, the performance is sufficiently nuanced to carry us along. Mercifully, Viktor is less abrasive than, say, Pacino’s Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade in the 1992 film Scent of a Woman. The movie Simone never takes itself too seriously, so we are willing to overlook the many levels at which the movie fails to track.

The most important of these for me is an unrealistic notion of how technology is introduced to the world. Simone becomes a world star, yet has the obvious and bizarre requirement of never appearing in public or with another person.

Despite this, no one ever suspects that Simone is a synthespian (this term, meaning “virtual actor or actress” was coined by Jeff Kleiser and Diana Walczak of Kleiser Walczak, who created the computer models for our Ramona project), despite the fact that the world portrayed in Simone is well aware of synthespians. (Taransky discusses the notion with the crazed inventor Hank Aleno, portrayed by Elias Koteas, who has created Simone’s software.) Presumably the reason that no one questions whether Simone might be a synthespian is because Simone is so utterly convincing as a human.

But this is never how such technology evolves. You can see the state of the art for real-time virtual personality transformation as of two years ago by looking at the Ramona videos I referenced above. Ramona is reasonably photorealistic but she would never get away with what Simone gets away with. For the state of the art in non-real-time synthespian technology, take a look at Sony’s Final Fantasy. These virtual actors are impressive but again not completely convincing.

Over time, these and other forms of virtual reality will become more and more realistic, but only ever so gradually. By the time the “perfection” presumably represented by Simone is feasible, the public will be very familiar with the idea of a virtual actress. Technologies such as these never burst on the scene fully formed with no imperfections as is displayed in this film.

We see this problem in lots of science-futurism movies. In “A.I.,” for example, one enterprising head of a corporate research and development department just comes up with the novel idea of adding “emotion” to their line of androids, and their generation 1.0 product is essentially perfect. The reality is that we’re already experimenting in a primitive way with emotional intelligence in our machines, and the mastery of machine “EQ” will evolve only very gradually.

Virtual VR

Simone is in fact only a virtual virtual personality (or “fake fake,” as director Andrew Niccol puts it). The movie credits fail to credit Rachel Roberts, saying that Simone is played by “herself.” New Line Cinema (a division of Warner Brothers) may think this is all in good fun, but I do know that many people are honestly confused by the supposed technology behind Simone. The truth is that there is no technology behind Simone. This is a movie about a synthespian but no synthespian technology was used to make the movie. In the movie, Elaine chides Viktor that he has not budgeted anything for Simone’s wardrobe, hairdressing, or makeup (“she does her own” is Viktor’s response).

In the same spirit, I would chide Simone‘s producers for apparently providing little budget for computer graphics. Anyone expecting a state-of-the-art demonstration will be disappointed. All we have is the very real Rachel Roberts with a bit of pixelation during a TV remote, some defocusing of her mouth, a few alterations to her eyes to give them an ethereal look, alterations to her voice, including splicing together the voices of multiple actresses, and a few other simple techniques.

We see a few tricks with Viktor applying such accoutrements as hair and tears, but these represent fairly elementary graphics manipulations. With regard to the ensuing controversy about leaving out Rachel Roberts’ credit, one suspects that New Line Cinema welcomes the controversy, as any publicity is good publicity.

There are many other issues with the technical premise here. From my own experience, it took a team of 20 people to pull off our live presentation of Ramona, yet Viktor manages to pull off a live holographic presentation of Simone before 100,000 fans and a worldwide audience with absolutely no staff at all. However, in the comedic spirit of the film, we’re willing to abandon all disbelief.

Andrew Niccol’s screenplay does present some provocative questions for us to ponder. In the course of Viktor’s dialogues with his female alter ego, he provides Simone with such pithy insights as “you’re more authentic than the people who worship you,” “the scales have tipped in favor of the fake,” and “our ability to manufacture fraud exceeds our ability to detect it.” He has Simone say “I am the death of the real.” The movie does not dwell on these concerns, however, and I agree with Ty Burr, whose review in the Boston Globe describes these thoughts as mere “bullets on a PowerPoint presentation.”

Viktor struggles with his guilt over his supposed fraud, but consoles himself that the only true art is the work itself. There is some subtle allusion here to other famous personalities in the entertainment world that may seem manufactured and unreal, even if there is little technology involved.

Overall, the movie seems to understand its own limitations and thus does not overplay its hand. I found it enjoyable to watch, and appreciated the inevitably imperfect manner that it introduces some of the important concepts of emerging virtual reality technology to a broad movie audience.

It started in 1965, when, as a high-school student, he appeared on I’ve Got a Secret and whispered to Steve Allen that his self-built computer had written the song he’d just played. Since then, this mild-mannered visionary has dazzled the public with his diverse creations.

The latest also involves music: Kurzweil’s alter ego, the virtual rock-star personality Ramona, who “performed” at the New York Music & Internet Expo (produced by New Media Music) on April 21st. Several days after that remarkable presentation, Kurzweil won one of science’s most prestigious awards, the Lemelson-MIT prize of $500,000 for “outstanding inventiveness and creativity.”

A key person in nominating Kurzweil for this award was Stevie Wonder. Wonder could personally attest to the effect that Kurzweil’s work has had on people’s lives (producing a “significant benefit to society” is one of the requirements for the prize). The consummate musician met the consummate inventor in 1976, when he decided to buy the Kurzweil Reading Machine after Ray demonstrated it on the Today show. “I could read anything I wanted with complete privacy,” Wonder has said of the breakthrough invention, which reads printed pages aloud. “It gave blind people the one thing that everyone treasures, which is independence.”

Ramona is a virtual performing and musical recording artist whose voice and movements are provided by Kurzweil and transformed in real time using motion capture, advanced computer graphics and audio processing systems.

Ramona is also an avatar on www.KurzweilAI.net, where conversational software and other technologies enable Ramona to hold conversations with visitors and respond to typed questions with lip-synched speech and lifelike, real-time facial animation.

To dramatize his vision of the powerful possibilities offered by virtual reality and artificial intelligence, in his keynote, Kurzweil plans to show videos of Ramona performing two songs — Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” and “Come Out and Play,” a new composition by Ramona (Kurzweil) and Zoux, Kurzweil’s musical collaborator. Kurzweil also will present the documentary video The Making of Ramona.

“Virtual performing and recording artists will transform the music industry during this next decade, just as virtual instruments such as synthesizers did during the last decade,” says Kurzweil, a pioneer in musical synthesizer technology.

“Come Out and Play” (MP3)

“White Rabbit” (MP3)

“Come Out and Play” (Without Voice Translation) (MP3)

“White Rabbit” (Without Voice Translation) (MP3)

What is the presentation about that you made at TED11?

I transformed myself into Ramona, my female alter ego. She is the first live virtual recording and performing artist. She is a demonstration that “you can be who you want to be” in virtual reality. We all have personalities within us that are difficult if not impossible to express with our real-world bodies and in real-world environments. Yet in virtual reality, we can express ourselves in new ways. We can go where we want to go. We can even “have been” who we want to have been, and be with whom we want to be with. Ultimately, virtual reality will be fully competitive with real reality in terms of the level of realism, while offering profound news ways to explore the world and to interact with each another.

I’ve always found myself attracted to female performers, and realized that I not only wanted to be with them, but wanted to be them. This is not a matter of gender confusion; having other gender personae in our fantasies is integral to our ability to relate romantically to the opposite sex. These personalities are there in all of us, but up to now have existed only in our imagination. Virtual reality provides the opportunity to express ourselves in important new ways.

My presentation pushes the state of the art in real-time virtual reality transformation, and is intended as a harbinger of things to come. Although real-time cartoon characters have been created before, this is the first time that motion capture and real-time image rendering technologies have been combined in a performance setting to create real-time photorealistic virtual performers. It is the first time that someone has given a singing performance in front of a live audience while being transformed into someone else. It is also the first time that a dancer has danced in a live performance while being transformed into someone else.

Real-time motion capture and photorealistic image transformation has obvious application to the entertainment world, but will ultimately profoundly affect the everyday world. By 2009, we will all have ubiquitous, full-immersion, shared, visual-auditory virtual reality environments. We will have images written directly to our retinas from our eyeglasses and contact lenses, high-resolution motion capture of our bodies through automatic detection of our electromagnetic fields, and very-high-bandwidth wireless connection to the Internet at all times. Going to a web site will mean entering a virtual reality environment where you can visit other people. It will be just like being there, at least as far as seeing and hearing is concerned. Of course, keep in mind that the people you meet in these virtual reality environments may have very different appearances and personalities in real reality. Ultimately, we will regard these virtual personalities as just as real and important as the one we portray in real reality.

By 2029, we will have nanobots, blood-cell sized robots, traveling through the capillaries of our brains communicating wirelessly directly with our biological neurons. This type of technology, called “neuron transistors,” has already been demonstrated. Billions of nanobots can be communicating with our biological brains and with each other, all on a wireless local area network. This will enable shared virtual reality environments incorporating all of the senses. With this technology, we will be able to meet each other and engage in any type of interaction, from business negotiations to sexual and sensual encounters, in any type of environment, from recreations of Earthly places to fantastic imaginary locales.

“Experience Beamers” will beam their entire flow of sensory experience as well as their emotions onto the web just as people beam their images from their web cams today. You’ll be able to plug in and experience what it is like to be someone else, à la “Being John Malkovich,” as well as relive interesting archived experiences.

Like any other technology, virtual reality is not emerging fully formed in one instant. Today, it has obvious limitations. I need dozens of computers and three-quarters of an 18-wheel truck worth of equipment to transform myself into Ramona and perform with my virtual dancers in virtual environments. But I can describe today how by the end of this decade, full-immersion, visual-auditory virtual reality will be ubiquitous, woven into our clothing, and highly realistic. Ultimately, virtual reality will offer everything real reality offers and a lot more. By the middle of this century, we will be spending most of our time in virtual reality environments.

The word “virtual” may be unfortunate because it implies that the experiences and environments aren’t “real.” But we’ve already had one form of virtual reality for over a century. The telephone is auditory virtual reality, and that’s exactly how nineteenth century enthusiasts viewed it. It would not be correct to say that interactions we have with each other on the telephone aren’t “real.” Rather, interacting with other real people over the phone represents an important extension of our ability to relate to each other. When we can add all of the other senses to these interactions, it will be another profound way to have real experiences with other real people.

When I transform myself into Ramona, I do feel empowered to express myself as a new personality. I feel that I am doing more than just playing a role, I am expressing my female alter ego, and I do find it liberating. I had a vision of who she was, and what she looked like, and with the help of dozens of brilliant people, I feel she expresses my original conception.

Why did you choose to launch Ramona at TED11?

Where else would I launch her? Ramona involves intense exploration and development of technology, entertainment, and design, and that’s what TED is all about.

Do you think the general public is ready for this type of technology?

Absolutely. Like all other communication technologies from the printed book to the Web, entertainment applications are dominant early on, then progress to profound new ways to interact, to learn, and to create new knowledge.

How will Ramona, or this technology, change our lives? Why is it so revolutionary?

The ultimate significance is as a step in the progression of our species from real reality to virtual reality. Thousands of years ago, written scrolls enabled ideas to travel from one place to another. A century ago, the telephone provided auditory virtual reality. Today, the technology behind Ramona represents an early manifestation of full immersion visual-auditory virtual reality. Within a few decades, we will be able to do anything with anyone in virtual environments that rival and even exceed the realism of real reality. It will enable us to have profound new experiences, and to express ourselves in new ways.

Will it change the way people conduct business?

The concept of the “business meeting” is the most obvious example. We’ll be able to meet in groups ranging from two people to large groups, regardless of the physical proximity of our physical bodies. We’ll be able to select our environments of choice, choosing from a well-appointed office, a virtual Mediterranean beach, a virtual wild game preserve, and virtual flights past celestial objects. More importantly, we can select the personae that best suit our intentions and goals for each encounter. If we go out thirty years, the nanobot technology will not only enable us to engage in full-immersion virtual-reality experiences involving all the senses, but they will literally expand our minds. They can provide trillions of additional interneuronal connections, thereby expanding our memory, pattern recognition, and cognitive faculties. We will ultimately combine the subtlety of human pattern recognition with the speed and memory sharing ability that machines already excel in.

What is unique about your vision/business plan? Where are you taking this?

Ramona is more than a technology demo. We are launching a serious career for Ramona as the first live virtual musical performing and recording artist. We realize that she will have interest because of the novelty of the technology, but we intend Ramona to be more than a novelty act. Our creative team in terms of musical, theatrical, and dance talent matches that of our technology team, and we plan on making a serious artistic statement. We plan a music album, live performances on television and other venues.

We also plan on positioning KurzweilAI.net as the “place to be” on the Web for finding out about the advanced technologies of the twenty-first century, and their far reaching implications for human-machine civilization. We have an impressive line-up of the world’s “big thinkers” committed to providing significant content for the site. The content is accessed with a set of integrated web technologies that allow the user to converse with the avatar version of Ramona, and to explore the intuitive organized concepts in the display of her “brain.”

Are you planning to make money with Ramona? If so, how do you intend to do so?

There are three business models behind Ramona. First, she can make money the old fashioned way, as a performing and recording artist, the same way that other musical artists make money. The fact that she is the first live virtual musical performing and recording artist certainly helps her appeal, but we intend on going beyond her interest as a novelty or as a mere technology demonstration.

In order to create Ramona, we have organized considerable technological talent and expertise in virtual reality technology, and we plan on harnessing this capability to assist other firms in creating virtual reality and entertainment technology.

The same model exists for KurzweilAI.net. This site is a showcase for both content and web enabling technologies, and we plan to assist other firms to present their own content using our own proprietary system and expertise. It’s the same model we have successfully followed at Medical Learning Company (FamilyPractice.com), which is another Kurzweil Technologies company.

How will this impact technology, entertainment, and the merging of the two?

The first major project I undertook that impacted the merger of entertainment and technology was Kurzweil Music Systems. The type of music synthesis we pioneered is now the basis for most commercial music, such as movie and television soundtracks and recorded music. With Ramona, we are integrating both musical and visual technologies, which is obviously the basis of most forms of entertainment.

How is Ramona different from other virtual reality “personalities”?

In terms of technology, Ramona is the first live virtual musical performing and recording artist. My presentation at TED represents the first time that a singer has performed in front of a live audience while transforming themselves into someone else. The same is true in terms of a dance performance. People have previously combined motion capture with real-time image rendering for cartoon like characters, but Ramona is the first virtual performer that is lifelike and photorealistic.

The web-based avatar version of Ramona is the first lifelike photorealistic avatar on the web that you can converse with using a conversational engine. She represents a unique combination of elements, combining a lifelike avatar, a conversational engine, synthetic speech, and the “Brain” display of her thoughts.

How will Ramona go on to be a virtual recording artist?

By recording an album and performing her original songs on television and other venues. At TED11, she performed an original song Come Out and Play (lyrics by Ramona, music by Zoux), and an original version of Grace Slick’s White Rabbit.

White Rabbit is one of my favorite songs. It describes the chaos that Alice encounters (“the white knight is talking backward”) and ends with the door mouse’s advice to “feed your head.” So chaos leads to new insight and knowledge. It’s a good expression of the creative process, and an empowering personal philosophy. Incidentally, it’s also a good description of how an evolutionary (or “genetic”) algorithm works, which is a method I frequently employ in my pattern recognition projects.

What do her voice, appearance, movements derive from?

In the virtual reality manifestation of Ramona, special magnetic sensors pick up the motion of my body. Special motion capture computers interpret these signals to build a moving three-dimensional image of my body. These are transformed into the movements of Ramona’s body by the computer taking into consideration the fact that her body is shaped somewhat differently from mine. Other computers then create the real-time moving images that correspond to Ramona’s body moving in a similar manner to mine. Phoneme recognition software, which is based on similar principles to speech recognition software, detects the phonemes in my speech. This is in turn affects the shape of Ramona’s mouth and other facial features to reflect her speaking. The actual sound of my voice is transformed into Ramona’s voice through real-time signal processing using principles similar to music synthesis. Other software controls Ramona’s facial expressions.

Real-time video compositing allows the moving images of Ramona to be composited with the other virtual performers, specifically Ramona’s back up dancers. These are composited together with images of her virtual environments, which can be static or moving. Ramona can be made to appear to be actually on the set of a television program. For example, she could sit on the coach with Jay Leno and she would appear to be there like any other guest. On television, she can perform on the stage along with other real performers.

The software model for Ramona was created by scanning a human model in a special three dimensional body scanner and head scanner employing lasers and three-dimensional digital image capture. These images were then manipulated in the computer by human artists to create Ramona’s unique appearance.

How long did it take to develop the technology behind Ramona?

Many of the subsystems have been in development for years and derive from work in speech recognition (for the phoneme recognition), music synthesis (for the gender bending of my voice to Ramona’s voice), and real-time image rendering (to create Ramona’s moving image). I had the idea to create Ramona as a result of my visit to SIGGRAPH, the nation’s leading graphics show, in July of 2000, where I gave the keynote address. The integrated technology to create Ramona and the creation of her actual image, voice, and personality then took about seven months, at which time we launched Ramona at TED11.

There are about 20 people involved on our own staff plus our “Ramona Technology Consortium,” which consists of over a dozen leading companies in virtual reality and web enabling technologies. All together, there were over 50 people making significant technology and creative contributions to the creation of Ramona.

Where will we see Ramona again?

Ramona will appear as part of my presentation at the ACM1 conference in San Jose on March 12 and at the New York Music & Internet Expo on April 21. We’ve had many other requests for her to appear, and now that she’s launched her career, she’ll be picking her venues carefully.

Do you expect her to evolve?

Sure. She’s considering getting a tattoo on her belly, but she’s getting conflicting advice on this. And then, of course, she’s interested in expanding her wardrobe. Virtual reality is still a bit expensive, so each of her outfits costs tens of thousands of dollars.

Ramona has her own life story, and as she points out, even though she was created more than 24 years after her birth, her story is still just as real as the histories of people in real reality. She just celebrated her 25th. Birthday (on 2/12/01) and her story will continue to evolve. There will be ongoing improvements in the realism of the technology behind Ramona. We are interested in providing live audiences with a three-dimensional experience in the future, preferably without having to use polarized glasses, and we are exploring several possible approaches to doing this.

Will there be other virtual reality personalities to follow?

Ramona has a fondness for TED impresario Richard Saul Wurman, and is delighted that he has joined her as one of her virtual backup dancers. We envision continuing to develop her co-performers.

How does this relate to your web site KurzweilAI.net?

The avatar version of Ramona is your hostess on KurzweilAI.net. Although Ramona’s virtual life experiences were different from my own story, she shares my passion for both technology and artistic expression, particularly for music. She is very much my female alter ego in both her virtual-reality performing manifestation and as a web based avatar.

Daryl and Annabel first met on Monday, August 18, 1970 in a bar in Abilene, Texas after discovering that they had both been at Woodstock a year earlier. As was often the case, Daryl was feeling down on his luck and frustrated that his musical career was at a standstill. But with Annabel’s enthusiastic support, Daryl organized a new band, “The Electric Blueberry,” which became a hit in Abilene and surrounding towns.

Daryl and Annabel were married a year later. With Annabel as manager, sound technician, and roadie, the Electric Blueberry was successfully working the tavern circuit in Texas and New Mexico. The high point came in the Fall of 1973 when the Blueberry was invited to open for the Grateful Dead for the Southwest portion of their “Wake of the Flood” tour. But the reaction of the fans was less than enthusiastic, and Daryl’s band was dropped after two weeks. Thus did Daryl give up his dreams of stardom and went back to teaching bass guitar. He also returned to hanging out with old gambling buddies.

Ramona was born to Daryl and Annabel on February 12, 1976. With Annabel picking up work as a sound technician, and Daryl finding the occasional guitar student, the couple scraped by, moving from Texas to California to Colorado to upstate New York, and back to Texas.

Despite the instability in their lives, Ramona and Annabel were inseparable. Ramona wore the same clothes as Mommy, and insisted on being her little helper in setting up music equipment. Annabel told Ramona stories about the heyday of Electric Blueberry, they looked at old photographs together, and listened to tape recordings of Electric Blueberry concerts. Every night as Annabel tucked Ramona into bed, she told her daughter that she could be anyone she wanted to be. “Don’t let people tell you who you are or what to think. Just follow your heart,” Annabel told her daughter.

“But I want to follow you,” Ramona would answer.

“I’ll be sitting right there on your shoulder,” her mother would assure her.

When Ramona was seven years old, on a day that Ramona will never forget, Annabel was killed while crossing the street in a hit and run. When Daryl tried to tell his daughter of the tragedy, Ramona insisted that it wasn’t true, her mother was still alive and sitting on her shoulder. To this day, Ramona feels her presence sitting there, her guardian angel. Ramona still wears the silver bracelet Annabel was wearing when she died.

To console Ramona right after Annabel’s death, Daryl tried to interest her in music and spent the month’s rent to buy her a guitar and harmonica. Ramona’s gift for music became apparent, and over the next several years, Daryl devoted himself to teaching Ramona how to sing and play her instruments. Whenever his available funds momentarily swelled from a well placed bet, he would buy Ramona a piece of musical equipment: a microphone, an amplifier, an electric guitar.

When Ramona was nine, Daryl won a bet with someone he had only met only once before, and who, as it turned out, was unable to pay up in cash. So the bet was settled for a Macintosh computer, which he gave to Ramona. The computer became her second passion. She taught herself to program in BASIC, and created a simple animation of herself singing on a stage. She found a program that allowed her to record her own playing. She attempted to play back her computerized recordings synchronized to her moving pictures, but was unable to get this to work. A subsequent gift of a tape recorder from her father did enable her to provide a musical background to her computer illustrations, but she harbored the desire to make her virtual world more interactive.

Daryl’s financial instability continued, and the pair moved from town to town. Ramona was shy, and the constant relocation prevented the development of her friendships. When Ramona was ten and living in a small town outside of Lubbock, Texas, she met a boy that shared her interest in both computers and music. He had his own Macintosh, so working together, they managed to integrate the musical playback with Ramona’s now enhanced graphics. But when her father picked up once again to move, she had to leave her friend, his computer, and their joint project behind.

Ramona started her songwriting career at 12. She spent long hours singing herself to sleep, as her father was often out late. She accompanied herself on a small Casio keyboard, and used her computer to record and play back her compositions.

When she was 14, Ramona came home one day to find Ralph, one of her father’s on-and-off again buddies, waiting by the front door.

“What do you want,” Ramona asked.

“Your pa’s got something to give me,” came the reply. Ramona knew enough to understand that it involved a gambling debt and told him that he wasn’t home and probably wouldn’t be around for some time.

“That’s okay, I’ll just wait here,” which was not the answer Ramona wanted to hear. She told him to leave and let herself in. As she went to close the front door behind her, she was disturbed to find that he had followed her inside.

“Hey, I don’t think you’re supposed to be in the house,” Ramona said to the unwelcome guest. It was clear to her that he had had too much to drink, and she became increasingly uneasy as he seemed to turn his attention from waiting for Daryl to asking her weird questions. He followed her into her room and started staring at her in a strange way, kind of like the boys at school, only she felt it was way creepy coming from one of her father’s friends.

“I reckon you gonna be leaving now,” Ramona told him, but he just smirked at her, taking another step closer. At this point, she consulted her guardian angel, quietly unplugged her Macintosh computer, picked it up, and smashed it on the intruder’s head. Apparently thrown off stride by this sudden expression of rage, Ralph ran for the door. Ramona threw the computer at him as he slammed the door behind him shattering the door’s antique window.

Returning home an hour later, her father was alarmed to find Ramona’s cracked computer in the walkway.

“What the hell…are you okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine, I can’t say the same for your buddy Ralph. Hey, in the future, why don’t you settle your own debts.”

Daryl quickly realized more or less what had happened, and he managed to get Ramona to fill in the details. Deeply ashamed, Daryl tried to comfort Ramona, who only shrugged him off. She tried hard to act like everything was fine, everything except, of course, for her computer.

Ramona could see that her father was enraged at Ralph and she was alarmed when her father left the house apparently intent on settling the score. When her father returned a few hours later, he told her that she needn’t worry about Ralph again. Ramona knew that her father was not a violent man, but she insisted on knowing what had happened. Daryl explained that he and his friends had confronted Ralph in force and insisted he leave town immediately and never come back. Apparently he had complied, leaving all of his possessions behind, except for the pick-up truck which he used to drive away.

Ramona felt some satisfaction at seeing her father’s intense reaction to the incident, and his success in organizing his friends to avenge the intrusion. And in cashing in Ralph’s left behind possessions, Ramona got two computers, changing now to PC’s. For several precious months, father and daughter were close and spent long hours composing and playing music together.

Feeling the need to bring some stability into Ramona’s life, Daryl began to date Claire, a local concert manager he met through a part-time job setting up sound systems. Claire had no musical talent herself and seemed to resent the attention that Ramona was starting to get through her music, as well as the devotion given to her by her father.

With her two computers, Ramona could now integrate her own interactive graphics with music software she had written herself in C, although she found the early limitations of Windows frustrating. But Claire saw no need for Ramona to have two computers and took it upon herself to remove one. Claire installed it in her makeshift office, which was located in a warehouse being used as rehearsal space by local bands.

When Ramona was 15, Daryl and Claire married and the threesome moved to Colorado. This brought a measure of the stability that Daryl had sought, but it came at a price. Claire demanded all of Daryl’s attention, and forbade Ramona to practice her music with Shawn and Zachary, her classmates and musical collaborators. Despite Claire’s attempts to control her, Ramona, Shawn, and Zachary began rehearsing by leaving school during lunch period, and often continuing for the rest of the afternoon. With Ramona as lead singer, she and her guitarist and drummer won the Colorado High School Battles of the Bands competition. Ramona told her father and stepmother that they had been rehearsing as part of their music class at school, but Claire became suspicious, and began to look through Ramona’s papers while she was at school.

At 16, using a fake ID that Shawn had made for her, Ramona snuck out at night to sing at Dee Dee’s Dive and the Wonder Room, two bars in a neighboring town. She was a hit at these venues until her stepmother discovered her second life. Ramona came home one night to find that her computer and instruments had all been confiscated. She confronted her father and demanded that Claire leave the house and their lives. Daryl attempted to comfort his daughter but found himself unable to agree to Ramona’s demand.

So Ramona left Colorado with Shawn and they set out on their own, ending up in New Orleans after several weeks on the road. She brought $2000 with her that she had saved. Ramona found this a carefree time, as her friendship with Shawn grew increasingly romantic. She bought a used computer and decorated the ramshackle house they rented with her own original color graphics. After several months, their financial situation became desperate, so Ramona used her fake ID and started waiting on tables at “Platinum Dolls,” a Bourbon Street strip club. Although shy at first, she discovered that she was excited by the men’s flirtations, but she resisted the entreaties from Bill, the club manager (and bouncer) to “graduate” from cocktail waitress to performer. She pulled in pretty good money on tips and both Ramona and Shawn both found themselves with what was for them large sums of money for the first time in their lives. Although Ramona told Shawn every detail of her club experiences, it was never clear to Ramona exactly where Shawn got his money.

After working at Dolls for a year, Ramona pressed Bill to allow her to sing on stage. Although he had always said she could do whatever she wanted on stage if she joined their line up of “dolls,” he understood that she just wanted to sing. “Sure, go ahead,” Bill said, so Ramona jumped at the chance. That evening when the club was the busiest, she put on her background track, and approached the stage. Her spirits soared as she got a vigorous cheer as she jumped up on stage, but the cheers soon turned to taunts as the somewhat inebriated audience made clear their interest in a different kind of performance. She felt like stalking off stage, but her guardian angel whispered in her ear, “you’re doing just fine, sweetheart, just be who you want to be,” so she put the rowdy audience out of her mind and finished her song.

As she left the stage, one customer forcibly made clear his frustration, and refused to get out of her way. She attempted to walk away, only to be forcibly yanked back. Another patron intervened on Ramona’s behalf, which resulted in the unruly customer punching the helpful one, throwing Ramona to the floor.

“Where the hell is Bill when you need him,” Ramona thought to herself. While the two men were struggling, Annabel raised her eyebrows at Ramona as if to say, “you can handle this.” So Ramona looked around, grabbed an oversized pitcher of iced tea and poured it on the belligerent patron’s head. Thus startled, he was quickly ejected.

Ramona was immediately intrigued with this friendly stranger, who introduced himself as Chad. He had a warm way about him, and, and he seemed more approachable than most of the men she encountered in the club. His compliments on her singing felt sincere and the two of them burst out laughing as they showed each other the bruises that they had to show for their encounter.

Chad told her that he was a concierge at the Royal Sonesta and had plans to start his own music club called “Chad’s Pad.”

“So you were just scouting out the talent,” Ramona teased Chad.

“Actually, that’s exactly what I was doing,” Chad replied. He told her he already rented the space and gave her the address. Ramona said she had to leave, but she’d check it out. She headed home, leaving Platinum Dolls for the last time. And as for Chad, the smile she left him indicated she’d be seeing him again.

She came home earlier than usual, and found a stranger waiting by her front door.

“What do you want,” Ramona asked.

“Shawn’s got something to give me,” came the reply. Uh oh, this doesn’t sound good, Ramona thought to herself. She went into the house and found that Shawn wasn’t there. She was about to go back out and tell the impatient visitor to come back later when it suddenly dawned on her what Shawn had been up to. Ramona got the same confident look from her guardian angel, so she knew what to do.

“Oh, Shawn had an errand to run, he asked me to give it to you,” she said. “Now where did he say he was keeping it?”

“Oh, in the usual place, behind the loose tile in the bathroom.”

“Okay, just a moment,” Ramona replied.

Ramona had always noticed the loose tile but had never thought to look behind it. She went to look and sure enough, there was a large tin filled with pills. She felt stupid for not realizing what she now felt should have been obvious. And while many of the girls at “Dolls” were hard drug users, she had always realized this was a path she needed to avoid. For all of her father’s weaknesses, he had always cautioned her against getting involved with illegal drugs (other than marijuana, in which he had indulged during Blueberry days). She flushed the pills down the toilet and then told the waiting stranger that she had found nothing there, and that Shawn must have the delivery with him. So the stranger left. When he was out of sight, Ramona filled her car with her computers and belongings and left the house for good.

She thought she should be upset, but somehow she felt empowered. “That’s not bad for one afternoon,” she thought to herself, “leaving my job, my boyfriend, and my house.” She drove around by herself for a while and then sought out Chad. Not finding him at the Royal Sonesta, she tried to find Chad’s Pad. It took a while to find, as it wasn’t listed and no one had heard of it. She was not familiar with the side street he had given her, and after driving around the grid of small streets near Bourbon Street for a half hour, she finally found it, a small basement room with a cardboard sign.

Ramona found Chad there by himself (except for a stray cat) opening boxes of imitation wood siding. He was delighted to see her and handed her a hammer.

“Hey, not so fast, what’s in this for me?” Ramona asked.

“Well, you can be our opening headliner.”

“Yeah, whom I gonna sing for–you and the cat?”

“Well that would be nice, here have a seat,” Chad said as he pulled up a wooden box for Ramona to sit on. So she dusted off the box, sat down, sang her most recent lyrics, “Why Don’t You Come Out and Play.” And with Chad’s enthusiastic reaction, she accepted the offer of the hammer.

Upon waking the next morning (at Chad’s other pad), Ramona had a better idea.

“New Orleans doesn’t need yet another random music dive,” she exclaimed over breakfast. “Let’s do something a little different–how about we just feature the ladies?”

“You mean a club like Dolls, what’s unique about that?”

“No, no, I mean a music club with chick singers, like me.”

Chad was hesitant, but he could see that Ramona was taken with the idea, and he was becoming taken with her. So Chad and Ramona became partners and spent the next several weeks scrounging up materials to renovate their new club, devoted to the “Ravens” of New Orleans.

Opening night featuring Ramona and Lisa, one of Ramona’s a talented friends, as headliners. But customers were hard to attract in New Orleans’ crowded music scene, and Ravens found it difficult to get established. They did ultimately succeed in attracting a small but loyal following and Chad and Ramona struggled to keep the project going through the next two years.

Then Ramona had another idea. The world wide web was just beginning to blossom. Why not create a virtual music club, still devoted to female singers, but existing only on the web? They could reach music lovers all over the world. Chad acknowledged that he had never actually seen the Internet, so she gave him a tour of the web circa 1995. Ramona’s idea was to provide real music and real stories behind real lives, using words, pictures, music, and video. Let people connect with the people behind the music. Chad knew enough not to get in Ramona’s way when she became enamoured with an idea. So they struck another deal, shutting down Ravens as a physical club and opened www.RealRavens.com, a site devoted to the “real music and stories behind the ‘ravens’ of New Orleans”. Ramona did all the programming, and recruited the singers. Chad put up the money from his salary at the hotel. Ramona helped the girls write their stories and rummage through old photo albums.

Ramona found it too difficult to stream audio, let alone video with the technology of 1995. So their plan to charge users didn’t pan out. They did charge a small fee to the musicians for being on the site, but the early cash flow generated by their business was limited. However, their overhead was also low, and Ramona and Chad ran their small business from their small apartment. In 1996, when audio on the web did become feasible, they added music recordings, and eventually live streaming concerts.

And of course, Ramona promoted herself as one of the featured ravens, which led to successful gigs in some of the Bourbon Street clubs. Chad turned out to be an effective business partner for Ramona, but the romantic aspect of their relationship never achieved the intensity of their work together. He was always complaining that she was putting the web site and her singing first and him second, so she was not totally surprised when she discovered that Chad had become involved with Lisa. She felt it was again time to move on.

She had renewed her contact with her father and was delighted to hear that he and Claire had separated. She made an emotional homecoming, and was greeted with open and embracing arms. She was disturbed to find that Claire had ended up with the small house that they had struggled to buy, and that her father was now living in a run down boarding house. But she was no stranger to difficult circumstances, and she helped her father decorate his small room with some of her graphic designs. Father and daughter began to play music together, something they had never done before. Ramona’s month long visit was an idyllic time as she and her father spent long hours perfecting her songs. She was amazed at her father’s insights into her music, and felt a renewed confidence in herself as a musical artist.

Ramona returned to New Orleans, and decided to put her relationship with Chad on a more professional footing. She hired an attorney who helped her sort out their tangled finances. She got the business incorporated, and cut herself a fair share of the stock. The cash flow from RealRavens.com was now picking up, and she gave herself the title of webmistress as well as a salary. And for the first time in her life, she got her own apartment.

She recruited musicians, who were plentiful in New Orleans, and found herself a keyboardist, guitarist, and drummer. Borrowing from the name of her web site, she called her new band “Ramona and the Ravens,” which developed a strong following in the New Orleans alternative music scene.

Over the next several years, both of Ramona’s “Raven” projects flourished. She had enough money to send some back to her father, who frequently came out to watch her perform.

On July 26, 2000, SIGGRAPH, the nation’s leading computer graphics show came to New Orleans, and Ramona went to check it out. She heard Raymond Kurzweil, who, in his keynote address, talked about how in the future we will be spending most of our time in virtual reality, and that in virtual reality you can be anyone you want to be.

She approached Raymond after his presentation (in a “lucid” dream, actually), and pointed out to him that, seeing as she was his female alter ego, perhaps he would like to create her.

And so he did. Raymond Kurzweil and his staff created Ramona along with her story in the Autumn of 2000. Although created 24 years after her birth, Ramona feels that her history is just as real as the history of people in real reality. After all, Ramona likes to point out, our memories just exist as patterns in our heads anyway.

Ramona is looking forward to other people joining her in virtual reality. “Real reality is just so lame,” she points out. “It’s a bit lonely here, but I’ve always liked being a pioneer.”

Ramona is looking forward to her debut as a real virtual singer at the TED conference, and she confesses to having developed something of a crush on Richard Saul Wurman, TED’s impresario. She was delighted to learn that Richard is joining her team of virtual dancers.

Some pertinent facts about Ramona

Zodiac sign: Aquarius

Favorite clothes: tight

Favorite color: red

Favorite car: Ferrari

Favorite food: Canolli

Favorite candy: pop rocks

Favorite pet: Australian Sheepdog (“because they’re loyal”)

Favorite songs: Runaway train, White Rabbit

Inspirations: Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Janis Joplin, Alanis Morissette, Cat, Tori Amos, Ani DiFranco, Holly McNarland

Some guys that are cool too: John Lennon, Donovan, Stevie Wonder, Richard Saul Wurman, all the guys in Our Lady Peace

Kurzweil’s inventions have dramatically extended human senses and enhanced artistic expression. They include firsts in optical character recognition of multiple fonts, the CCD scanner, speech recognition and synthesis devices, and the revolutionary grand-piano-quality music synthesizer.

Ramona is Kurzweil’s newest invention. “Virtual actors (‘vactors’) have performed live on stage before,” he says, “but this is the first time a singer and dancer have been transformed into a virtual person in real time.” To accomplish this feat, he assembled a team of engineers, sound and video technicians, and dancers and musicians plus an array of sophisticated computer graphics, video and sound systems. In performance, Kurzweil and dancer (daughter Amy in the TED11 performance) are wired up with motion-capture sensors that transmit movements to a motion-capture system.

Illustration by Thomas Reis

This motion-capture data is sent to an array of computers that generate 3-D moving images of Ramona and the dancers (including TED producer Richard Saul Wurman in the TED11 performance) in real time.

Meanwhile, Kurzweil’s voice is computer-processed to change gender. Reverb is added and his voice is combined with sound from the musicians and sent to speakers. At the same time, phonemes (basic speech sounds) are extracted and used to control Ramona’s lip and facial expressions.

Ramona’s final image is then rendered and converted to video, combined with video backgrounds to create a music-video effect, and displayed to the audience on a video projector.

Creating the Model

But this raises the question: How did Ramona’s image get created in the first place? Weeks before the performance, Ramona started out her incarnation as 3D laser scans of her face and body. These created a “point cloud” of color dots representing her basic shape.

The point cloud data was then tessellated (points joined to form polygons, or faceted surfaces) and missing data filled in. For the face scan, mouth and facial movements were defined for each phoneme and a set of facial expressions was developed.

Both models (body and face) were then integrated into a rough 3D model.

This model was then enhanced for realistic movement (using rigging and weighting) and for realistic skin and clothing (using texturing and deformation curves). The final model was loaded on computers for real-time image rendering during the performance.