2024+ outlook, the state of AI & alternate platforms, & more | 2023 open letter

Our perspective on AI & other platforms, plus our plans for 2024

Hello again

It’s certainly been awhile since our last open letter, which we’ve last published in March of 2023. As part of our commitment to transparency, we’d like to provide some updates regarding our platforms and services, our development progress, our outlook for 2024, and share a few opinions about the industries we reside within, and the rapid changes they’re enduring.

Recently, we’ve released Atmos Platform Update 3 this past July, which included support for new types of illustrative and expressive media, native video upload and playback, higher image capacity, enhanced performance and navigation throughout the platform, and most importantly, introduced support for post tags for both sensitive content and AI generated content, with the ability to control the visibility of posts with those tags.

By introducing these new platform features, we’re continuing our commitment of making Atmos the truly next-gen platform, by providing compression-free media uploads, enhanced control over the posts in your feeds, and a unique, intuitive design language that’s built on the web and designed for the future.

While Platform Update 3 was delivered with success, there are a few other changes and additions that are yet to be introduced in future platform updates, from the ability to move posts between collections, to enhanced image capacity support for the all-new iPhone 15 series, among a plethora of other quality-of-life features that we’re committed to delivering. This also includes our long-awaited Horizon Max design refresh, bringing a completely reworked, optimized platform experience for users on large-format devices, such as desktops and laptops.

We’ll continue to work on these additional features and design updates throughout the rest of 2023 and into 2024, with additional notifications and updates being sent out, just like this one, when we’re approaching a release timeframe.

As always, we’re always within reach, so feel free to contact us with any questions, requests for user support, and other inquiries.

Regarding AI technologies

Over the past few months, we’ve seen an exponential increase in the usage of AI tools and services, as well as growing concerns regarding the usage and ethics of AI. From the inconsistencies in their outputs to ethical concerns regarding their training materials, there is a concern that we are progressing too rapidly through the technology to understand its limitations and consequences throughout multiple industries.

While we will not comment too deeply in this subject, we solidly believe that AI technologies must be treated with extreme care, and given the ever-increasing realism in their synthetic outputs, we’ve taken steps to ensure that all of our users are well informed about what they see when using our platforms and services by mandating the disclosure of AI generated content on the Atmos platform. This allows users to understand which posts or comments contain AI generated content, and with Atmos’ Platform Update 3, users can choose to completely hide all AI generated content on the Atmos platform.

Additionally, we have no plans to introduce generative AI features into any of our platforms and services in the near future, as we believe that we can still deliver a next-generation user experience without it, by creating innovative, transformative social experiences that are powered exclusively by human connection, interaction, and design.

To learn more about our approach regarding AI generated content on the Atmos platform, you can read our article on Medium where we describe how to mark your posts and comments as containing AI generated content.

Regarding other social platforms

Within the last few years, we’ve seen several significant events within the social media industry, ranging from the introduction of entirely new platforms, to acquisitions of existing platforms and more. It’s important for us to stay up to date with and within the social media industry, as it plays a crucial role in our development process.

For example, on X, formerly Twitter, the platform is making it difficult for creative artists to share and distribute their works within the platform, as an aggressive account-labelling system is being deployed within the platform, restricting the reach of the posts from the affected accounts.

We then took the steps necessary to provide these creative artists with the tools and capabilities that they would need on the Atmos platform, from expanded image upload capacity, to support for native video uploads and playback, as well as support for sensitive content with built-in, automatic, and transparent platform-level visibility restrictions when needed.

Another example is how we process media on the Atmos platform. While other platforms may offer high media capacities for the initial upload, they often resort to using compression when storing the media on their infrastructure, causing the media to lose part of its original quality. Additionally, some platforms may offer lossless media storage as well, but at the result of a significantly lower upload capacity. The Atmos platform was designed to offer the best of both worlds, helping to set our platform apart when compared to other mainstream social platforms.

Finally, another up-and-coming platform that is increasing in popularity, Bluesky, has a design language that is reminiscent of the X platform, fully abandoning the opportunity to innovate in a stagnant, competitive industry. The Atmos platform builds upon the Horizon design language, a system of user interface and experience specifications that is not only one-of-a-kind, but also intuitive and familiar to use, with the ability to dynamically scale across all devices while maintaining the same feature set. And with Horizon Max being prepared for implementation into the Atmos platform, it’ll continue to set the bar for what it means to be a truly next-gen social network, while other platforms continue to remain the same, to both themselves, and their competitors.

2024 and beyond

We’re committed to delivering the next-gen experiences that our users deserve, but we understand that our development time is beginning to cause some concerns. As a small team of 5, we occasionally lack the headroom to fully commit to the development of our platforms and services, when moments of life command our limited time. We’re committed to transparency, and as always, we’ll share any updates that we have as they happen.

Regarding the development of WarpLight Quantum, our user-centric subscription service, we’re continuing our development of the underlying infrastructure that will enable the enhanced functionalities within our platforms and services. We understand that subscription services are not everyone’s preferred method of monetization, but as we do not sell ad space or user data of any kind, our options are limited. Users who choose to donate will always receive a month of WarpLight Quantum service for every $5 that is donated, which is an alternate option that we will honor as well.

WarpLight Quantum not only enables insanely high upload capacities within our platforms and services, but it also enables new ways for our users to express themselves by allowing subscribers to create their own custom sticker and emoji packs, which any user can then use in our platforms, regardless if they are subscribed or not. Plus, Quantum can be shared with up to 5 users, with full access to all of Quantum’s benefits for all included members of the share group.

To learn more about WarpLight Quantum, starting at $5 a month via Patreon, you can read our article on Medium.

How to contact us

We’re aware that our email infrastructure is still affected by a previous infrastructure upgrade, impacting our ability to receive and send support emails regarding user accounts and other support inquiries.

We’re continuing to offer user support through alternative methods, such as X direct messaging and Telegram direct messaging, as well as Discord direct messaging via our StarLounge community with direct access to WarpLight developers.

To learn more about our contact options, you can read our article on Medium.

Final thoughts

Seeing what Atmos and WarpLight have become, it gives me plenty of hope for the future. Considering where we’ve been, I still have a strong sense of opportunity within our offerings, and it has not diminished in any way, even in the face of the pandemic, our slowing development, and even other platforms.

While we may be making smaller steps now, it’s only a matter of time until something extraordinary happens that’ll really set us apart from the rest, and that’s when our platforms and services will really begin to speak for themselves.

While things may feel like they’ve come to a halt nowadays, rest assured, we haven’t forgotten about our platforms, and we hope that our users do not forget about us as well, and continue to help us spread the word when we have new things to share.

So on behalf of everyone in the WarpLight developer network, I’d like to personally thank all of our users, and readers, for their commitment in staying with us during this long, multi-year journey.

This is only the beginning, and great things are on their way,

For everyone, everywhere.

Justin — WarpLight Founder, Atmos Project Manager, Head of UI, UX, & PR