James Pero

Tech

Watch Nvidia use AI to make people into digital avatars

Speech recognition, facial tracking, and 3D graphics are combined to make a digital "toy" avatar.

The Metaverse is upon us whether we want it or not, and it’s not just Faceboo — erm — Meta, getting in on the action.

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Nvidia, at its annual GTC conference, unveiled its own plans for creating digital / VR avatars that employ a host of different cutting edge technologies to represent our corporeal selves in the digital world.

Its VR vision, shown here, incorporates speech recognition, face-tracking, and other AI tools to power an avatar that Nvidia says could be used in customer service applications (like ordering fast food) or in remote work situations (a little digital you doing and saying business things).

Here, a digital “toy” of Nivida’s CEO answers questions about climate change

If this all sounds familiar, that’s because Meta’s Metaverse recently pitched basically the same future, though with a bit more emphasis on the virtual work aspect and a lot more Sweet Baby Ray’s.

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As interesting as Nivida’s presentation was, there’s obviously still a long way to go before we’re able to galavant around a digital ecosystem barking orders at our VR subordinates in the Cloud Office.

One thing is for sure, however, and that’s the fact that there’s a pretty clear interest (and money) in making some kind of next-gen VR ecosystem work, so you may want to buckle up and pay close attention to the Metaverse, or the Omniverse, or whatever verse wins out, because it might just be the digital future you didn’t ask for.

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