It seems Samsung has found a way to bring lifelike ‘artificial humans' to the masses. The company has been teasing a new product called NEON in recent weeks, and a leaked video showcasing what NEON can do suggests that we could soon be talking to a digital human who looks, talks, and even thinks like a real person.
NEON seems to use motion capture technology to capture an actor's likeness and voice and then lets AI use that data to let the digital avatars “autonomously create new expressions, new movements, new dialog (even in Hindi), completely different from the original captured data”, according to Pranav Mistry, who is leading the project. Digital humans are not new – they have been seen in movies and video games for decades, but Samsung is suggesting that NEON can take things a step further and enable these digital humans to have unscripted interactions.
Unfortunately, it remains to be seen exactly how lifelike the characters created with NEON will be (and whether we will one day see them making their way into Bixby). The leaked video makes it all look extremely impressive, though, and we can't wait to see what Samsung has in store. The company will be showcasing NEON at CES 2020 in Las Vegas, which is taking place from January 7 to January 9.
