As if there weren’t enough people trying to become multiplatform stars, soon they’ll all have to compete with ANA, a hyper-realistic virtual human created by Krafton.
The company that also makes the popular battle royale game PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds revealed (opens in new tab) a few pics from ANA on Wednesday. The stills only show her head – or really just her face – but feature a pink-haired and somewhat playful person who looks like they’re very interested in what you have to say next.
Eventually we will see more from ANA though. Krafton promises that its virtual human will, as Josh Seokjin Shin, head of Krafton Creative Center, explained in a press release, will “release an original music track and expand her scope as an influencer to various fields of entertainment and sports.”
Based on the pictures, ANA looks real. There are still issues around the teeth, too-perfect skin, and the plastic-looking fingers that lightly touch her face. Despite this, the effect is quite noticeable thanks to the inclusion of imperfections such as weak pores, wrinkles and tiny hairs on the skin.
Even without a full body pic or moving video, there’s reason to believe ANA could end up being something special. When Krafton first unveiled its hyper-realistic technology, which leverages face rigging technology for subtle and vivid facial expressions, pupil movement, and natural joint movements, in February, it also released a PUBG movie video (opens in new tab) demonstrates the current state of his virtual human technology.
In the video, a group of PUBG competitors fight against a masked enemy. Interspersed with the eerie valley moments are some scenes that come razor close to true realism. One of the characters, a woman being shot in the arm, looks like a clear ANA ancestor.
In addition to all the face, skin, and body tech, Krafton says it uses deep learning to build an AI voice that allows ANA to “act and sing like a real human.”
We need this, why?
We live in a world of fake. Whether it’s actors wearing other people’s faces to recreate younger versions of the original actors (see Boba Fett and Luke Skywalker (opens in new tab)), Deep fakers wearing other actors’ faces (opens in new tab)or bots that think they’re human, it’s hard to trust anything you see, hear, or read.
Artificial humans, even artificial influencers, have been around for years. But few would be wrong Miquela, for example for a real person. However, based on what Krafton promises here, we won’t soon know whether the TikToker telling us about the perfect clean or the YouTuber singing an original song are flesh and blood or ones and zeros.
We’ll happily welcome ANA when she’s ready to emerge on the digital scene, but maybe she can stay with PUBG and not try to eliminate any of the contestants on The Voice.
This article was previously published on Source link
