Foreword
I like to learn novel things because they add color to life. I think life’s sole meaning is to explore doing things that have not been done by others in a satisfactory way. I will record everything that I think intriguing and worthwhile working on in this post.
Macro-field sound control(attenuation/cancellation)
This idea occurred to me when I was tortured by the noise in my dormitory and also on subway. It made me learn acoustics in my freshman year and dream of make a fortune by inventing some acoustic system to cancel the noise on headrest without wearing ANC earphones or passive earmuffs. I did read some papers on this subject, which utilize some expensive laser-membrane system to do ANC around the ears without wearing anything. It will be worthwhile to develop a low-cost way to control irregular noise.
On the other hand, there are regular noise in some scenarios like on a subway train. There are notoriously annoying and unnecessary broadcasting audio on a subway train and they are all predicable–in the way that you know what it is going to say after hearing the beginning of it.
Robot calligraphy at human level and with human intelligence
This is what I am currently working on.
Better MIDI
Mastering musical instruments requires years of laborious practice which is, in my view, mechanical and only enjoyable after you have mastered it. MIDI can synthesize music but lacks expressive and decorative part of music. The goal is to obtain a synthesizer able to generate audio samples of any desirable style. DDSP is something to build upon.
Text and media creator
From https://www.bls.gov/ooh/arts-and-design/craft-and-fine-artists.htm :
Artists create objects that are beautiful, thought provoking, and sometimes shocking. They often strive to communicate ideas or feelings through their art.
People often admire writers and artists for their talents in creating inspiring and emotional things. I believe in the near future, learning algorithms that power generative AI can make this creating ability not a privilege for some fortunate few and tremendously transform the world of creation. For example, if one is unsatisfied with the ending of a novel / movie / TV drama, one can change it on its own, that is to say, what is sold is not fixed pixels / text, but a generative model that a user control. If intellectual property can be created in batch, it is interesting to think about what will happen to writers, artists and film makers – those white-collar workers.