| Highlights for August 2024
Healthcare Context OpinionAI Ltd demonstrated a virtual being named Aivah that can “see” through an iPhone video camera and move around within a Vision Pro environment using WebXR. This AI companion exhibits spatial awareness and responsiveness, enabling it to interact dynamically with physical spaces and possibly support therapeutic, caregiving, or assistive applications. The integration of WebXR and real-time camera input positions Aivah as an advanced synthetic character with potential for use in medical or psychological support scenarios. Entertainment and Cultural Contexts Simli shared a post featuring two AI avatars, Karen and Julius Caesar, interacting in a playful dialogue. Karen, known for her realism, and Julius Caesar, presumably modeled after the historical figure, illustrate the growing cultural use of AI-generated characters for entertainment, historical reimagination, and creative storytelling. These AI avatars represent a fusion of personality emulation and interactive narrative, providing audiences with engaging content based on recognizable or customized figures. Marketing and Enterprise Contexts Huawei is focusing strategically on AI-powered digital humans as a transformative tool across key industries in the UAE, signaling a commercial application of virtual beings in enterprise solutions. Their approach suggests the deployment of these digital humans in roles such as customer service, training, and public-facing virtual agents, backed by AI integration into their larger digital ecosystem. Additionally, NVIDIA is actively hiring for roles in its Digital Human Technology group, seeking talent to optimize AI-powered APIs and microservices that form the backbone of interactive digital characters. These developments indicate the enterprise sector’s prioritization of digital humans for scalable, automated engagement and communication solutions. Technology Development Context NVIDIA’s closure of the Audio2Face forum and redirection of users to a new platform marks a shift in its development of facial animation technologies. The Audio2Face system supports expression capture even when faces are partially obscured, enhancing the realism of virtual humans by minimizing environmental interference. Separately, the SONA (Sound Operated Neural Animation) project directly generates facial animations from speech input, synchronizing lip movement and conveying emotion via vocal intonation. Both technologies significantly enhance the expressiveness and believability of synthetic characters in real-time communication or performance settings. Creative and Ethical Contexts “Exploring Virtual Beings NYC,” hosted at NeueHouse, and associated with the group “Artist and the Machine,” addresses the intersection of AI, creativity, and identity. This event series or consultancy explores ethical questions and creative opportunities in the use of virtual beings, particularly regarding the role of artists in shaping synthetic identities and the cultural meanings these characters can embody. The program indicates a growing intellectual and artistic engagement with digital humans beyond technical development. Expert Industry Analysis Wu Suoning, a member of China’s Expert Advisory Committee on Artificial Intelligence, highlighted the rapid growth and future potential of the digital human industry in China. His remarks reflect high-level governmental and academic interest in developing this sector, with implications for policy support and industry expansion. Wu’s expertise lends credibility to projections that virtual humans will play increasingly important roles in digital economies and AI-driven interactions. Platform Interoperability and Avatar Design A South African-based system supports character models from Daz, Character Creator 3 and 4 (CC3/CC4), Mixamo, and ReadyPlayerMe, provided they include morph targets. This indicates significant interoperability in avatar design and deployment across platforms. The system reflects a growing infrastructure for synthetic character creation, emphasizing modularity and cross-platform compatibility that enable widespread use of virtual beings in metaverse, gaming, and digital identity scenarios. |
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