Computer-generated characters used to be the stuff of fiction, populating the world of video games and of films, but no longer.
AI giant SenseTime has been working hard to develop digital humans that can carry out various tasks across different milieus in the real world.
“With the dawn of the AI era, digital human is developing into a more advanced and intelligent model which is comparable to human beings. The AI-enabled intelligent service provided by a digital human can significantly increase productivity, facilitating the integration of digital economy and physical economy,” said Tian Feng, dean of SenseTime's Intelligence Industry Research Institute.
Five development stages of digital humans
The AI pioneer recently came out with what is touted to be the first-ever definition of the five development stages of digital human, analysing its core technologies and future trends.
In a whitepaper entitled “AI Digital Human: New Momentum for Digital Economy Development”, written in collaboration with The China Augmented Reality Core Technology Industry Alliance (CARA), SenseTime described the development stages of digital humans from two perspective: level of automation and similarity to human beings.
At levels 4 and levels 5 of development, SenseTime claims that a digital human attains a level of sophistication to simulate human behaviour.
“AI digital human of L4 can learn from a large number of human conversations, facial expressions, and body languages. It can achieve intelligent human-like interactions by performing natural facial expressions and body movements,” SenseTime said in a statement.
With its advanced deep learning capabilities, a digital human at the upper development levels can rapidly acquire knowledge from various scenarios to become an “expert” of a specific field. The intelligent interactions by AI digital humans of L4 or higher can be applied in general scenarios and various industries, providing momentum for industrial transformation.
AI digital humans to empower industries
Moving forward, SenseTime will continue to leverage AI technologies to unlock the potential of digital humans in empowering industries to forge a path for its smart journey
The company leveraged proprietary multimodal interaction, deep learning algorithms and full stack AI-Generated Content (AIGC) to create smarter and more professional AI digital humans, enabling human-machine interactive experience.
At the 2020 World Artificial Intelligent Conference, SenseTime’s digital human acted as a docent to guide tours for guests and visitors. Meanwhile, the company’s digital humans have served as a shopping guide in Guangzhou AEON Mall, as well as the customer service manager in the Bank of Ningbo Shanghai Branch, providing inquiry services for customers.
