Generating virtual reality, detecting deepfakes & more
What happened at Christmas AI Tinkerers in Prague
Excited about AI? If you haven’t heard about AI Tinkerers before, I want to introduce you to what it is about, how you can join next time, learn interesting things, or even present your own project.
What to expect from AI Tinkerers?
AI Tinkerers is a global initiative organizing hackathons, meetups, and events for AI enthusiasts. Recently they just came to Prague, my hometown. This time you could see a glance at virtual reality, deepfakes, an illegal peak at the Sora model, or AI autonomously using a computer and searching the internet to watch Pelisky (a popular Czech Christmas movie) and explain its plot.
How does this event work?
At AI Tinkerers, there are usually 3-5 talks on AI topics. You can submit your own talk and if you are accepted, you have a few minutes to show what you are working on, present a demo, code, slides, or anything interesting about your work. There are usually a lot of questions from the audience and interesting discussions. (More info about talks below.)
The Prague “branch” of AI Tinkerers started just in 2024, and it’s already really successful even compared globally.
After the official program, there is time for pizza, beer, in this case also mulled wine, and Christmas candies. You have chill chat with the attendees, meet new people, and often exchange contacts.
Is it an event for me?
While AI Tinkerers has a selective application process, you don't need to be an AI expert to join. Simply showing genuine interest in your application is important. Technical skills or working in tech is a plus, but you can also demonstrate your interest by sharing how your company uses AI and innovations.
If you are Czech and want to check out the local AI scene, I also recommend following prg.ai.
What was presented
1. Detecting deepfakes
Ivan Samarskyi, a student researcher, kicked off our first demo by showing us his DeepFake detection project. It was super funny but also reminded me of the disturbing reality of deepfakes.
In the beginning, Ivan showed us two videos of Volodymyr Zelenskyj talking, and we were unable to agree on which one was AI-generated. Check out yourself:
Ivan then explained to us how the project uses motion signatures to spot fake videos in a surprisingly simple but effective way.
2. Giving LLMs its own computers
This talk wasn’t recorded because it was done by me (cheers!). I showed three demos that had one topic in common. It used a special E2B sandbox environment built for LLMs to do stuff like controlling a whole computer or generating apps.
You can’t see the video, but you can try all of the use cases yourself for free, which is even better:
AI Analyst: Analyze your CSV files and get interactive charts.
Fragments: Generate fun web apps.
Computer Use: Let LLMs use their own isolated computer and do the same things humans do.
3. Virtual reality game
The next demo showed an AI-generated VR storytelling game by Adam Filandr (founder of NeoFables).
Adam let us create custom characters by just prompting the virtual reality with voice. The game world, characters, the story, and even music were all generated by AI. I think it was incredible and also had a bit of an uncanny valley vibe.
4. Grammarly on steroids
As a next demo, Daniel Bukac showed us his text tool called Steer. Steer is incredibly fast at fixing and improving text that it outperformed even Apple's upcoming AI features - and it's already working smoothly in real apps.
I know the founders and I really recommend trying Steer. If you are already using something like Grammarly, I would say it’s similar but better.
What’s next
The next Prague AI Tinkerers event is expected in February 2025. If you want to stay updated, subscribe here. Big thanks to everyone for organizing.
Happy Christmas and wishing you all a lot of cool events in 2025! :)
