OpenAI's Astra Video Pays Homage to 1979 MIT Multimodal Interaction Experiment

dotey · x · 2026-09-04

OpenAI's Astra promo features a 1979 MIT experiment called 'Put That There' from the Architecture Machine Group (predecessor to Media Lab). It demonstrated multimodal interaction combining voice, gestures, and screen content. The system recognized 100 words with fixed grammar and pre-recorded voice, but could ask clarifying questions. A landmark in multimodal HCI, OpenAI pays tribute to it.

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