[HN Gopher] Conversation with Zuckerberg, this time we talked as...
___________________________________________________________________
Conversation with Zuckerberg, this time we talked as photorealistic
avatars
Author : sergiotapia
Score : 142 points
Date : 2023-09-28 18:57 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| tikkun wrote:
| What timeline do people think it'll be until I can use this on a
| VR device at home?
| Keyframe wrote:
| End of this or next year?
| guzik wrote:
| Zuck said it would take more than few years.
| [deleted]
| paganel wrote:
| Very bleak.
| preommr wrote:
| How did they go from second-life knockoffs to this?
|
| This is actually impressive, and while not perfect, is close
| enough that they'll probably reach a version that is viable very
| soon.
| IKantRead wrote:
| > is close enough that they'll probably reach a version that is
| viable very soon.
|
| Haven't we seen this type of thinking to be proven a fallacy
| enough in the last decade to at least be skeptical of solving
| that last 1% until we actually see it?
| capableweb wrote:
| > How did they go from second-life knockoffs to this?
|
| Typically you do one MVP version and as soon as you've knocked
| that out, start working on a proper version, integrating
| feedback from the MVP as it comes in. I'm guessing they always
| wanted to have photorealism, but realized it'd take a while to
| get in place so they launched a quick version then got back to
| work.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > it'd take a while to get in place so they launched a quick
| version then got back to work.
|
| This is not a phone app. Physical demos that propose
| something that a user has no point of comparison with (new
| paradigm) absolutely need to be on either end of the maturity
| scale.
|
| - Either very raw barebone MPVs that should be only for
| lab/research aware people who won't cling to details and are
| able to see the 'principle' of what it could be.
|
| - Or absolutely imaculate picture perfect marketing demos
| that you can show to non-technical people
|
| Anything in between is a recipe for getting shot down,
| getting no buy-in, and receiving no insightful feedback.
| capableweb wrote:
| > This is not a phone app.
|
| Really? Definitely looks like something a simple phone
| should be able to process... Are they not wearing phones on
| their heads in the demo?!
|
| This "Publish > Feedback > Iterate > Repeat" loop doesn't
| just apply to smartphone apps, you can basically do this
| with anything in life, from hardware to mixology.
|
| I guess you could say the same thing about LLMs, since the
| initial models were terrible and just basically demos, they
| shouldn't actually have published those at all?
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > This "Publish > Feedback > Iterate > Repeat" loop
| doesn't just apply to smartphone apps, you can basically
| do this with anything in life, from hardware to mixology
|
| I again disagree.
|
| "Publish > Feedback > Iterate > Repeat" loop works when
| users can build on it from a previous reality that they
| can compare against.
|
| Physical demos that propose something that a user has no
| point of comparison with (new paradigm) you can either
| show a sketch/concept of what you want to do (to a
| tecnhical audience). Or build a semi-realistic demo to a
| non technical audience.
|
| Anything in between will probably be met with confusion
| or people focusing on details that are not the concept
| that you are showcasing.
| codetrotter wrote:
| > Anything in between is a recipe for getting shot down,
| getting no buy-in, and receiving no insightful feedback.
|
| I don't agree. I dislike Fb to the extent that I already
| deleted my account quite a while ago. And I thought the
| Meta attempt at a meta verse with cartoon characters looked
| ridiculous.
|
| But the video in the OP link, with the photo real avatars.
| This is a whole other level. It's super cool.
|
| The fact that they made a ridiculous cartoon Metaverse
| first does not detract from the coolness of this
| photorealistic thing.
|
| Still, I'm not gonna use any Metaverse that Meta will make.
| Photoreal or otherwise. But that is because I dislike Meta
| as a company.
|
| The point is that what they have made here is some top
| notch stuff.
|
| I look forward to seeing Apple compete with this. I hope
| that with an iPhone and an Apple VR headset I can get to
| experience something similar in a few years.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > The fact that they made a ridiculous cartoon Metaverse
| first does not detract from the coolness of this
| photorealistic thing.
|
| I agree with you on the coolness of this demo. I disagree
| that the cartoon demo does not detract.
|
| I suspect a large majority of users and advertisers
| assumed Zuckerberg went off-piste completely. This
| interview with Lex is much more aligned with what should
| have been their first public demo of a Metaverse
| 'vision'.
| kyleee wrote:
| A negligible amount of people have an attention span and
| memory as strong as you suggest is commonplace, so I
| think your point is moot.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| The background is either a white or black void, so they removed
| the entire "metaverse" from it, which I'm sure fixes most
| performance issues.
|
| Rendering two fairly realistic models on the screen at once
| isn't a big challenge these days, if they're the only thing
| being rendered.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > The background is either a white or black void, so they
| removed the entire "metaverse" from it, which I'm sure fixes
| most performance issues.
|
| I doubt it's a performance issue: the 3D model of a
| rectilinear room has fewer vertices than used to represent a
| single earlobe. It most likely is just an unimplemented
| feature; they also could have "cheated" by chroma-keying a
| 2D-texture background or rotoscoped the avatars onto a
| another 3D room scene, but what's the point when its just
| talking heads?
| nitwit005 wrote:
| Surely people have higher expectations for the environment
| their avatar is going to be in than a literal box?
|
| Games often only have the highest detail models present in
| cutscenes, where the rest of the game can be limited, and
| the camera can be controlled to limit how many characters
| are visible.
| gfodor wrote:
| They didn't, people just haven't been paying attention. They've
| been working on these avatars for almost a decade in parallel
| waiting for the hardware to catch up. The cartoon avatars are a
| function of hardware limitations.
| rngname22 wrote:
| The second-life knockoffs were only necessary because of the
| trade-off they made to target low-price HMD market and on-
| device GPU+CPU processing rather than PC VR or processing puck
| design. This photogrammetry based avatar stuff has already been
| working for years. See Meta's previous "Codec Avatar" in 2021
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS4Gf0PWmZs) or Unreal's
| MetaHuman (https://www.roadtovr.com/epic-metahuman-mesh-import-
| scan-rea...).
| bookaway wrote:
| I'm not sure how much facebook paid Fridman for this podcast
| but whatever it was, whether it was 0 or 10 million, it's
| probably the best value for money PR they've done in the last
| decade...or ever?
| curiousllama wrote:
| I swear to god if the Metaverse actually works my friends at Meta
| are never gonna let me live it down.
|
| I've talked SO MUCH trash
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| Maybe this could help all those Meta employees who are apparently
| too unproductive to work at home...
| tschellenbach wrote:
| Plenty of public polls on Blind and threads on HNews to see the
| impact of remote work. Don't think we benefit from ignoring
| that for many people remote work means hardly working.
| slg wrote:
| >remote work means hardly working
|
| If the only way an employer can tell if their employees are
| working is by forcing people back to the office, the company
| has bigger problems that employees not working.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| Perhaps, but they are _Meta_. With tech like this, they
| should be well equipped for remote work.
|
| It would be like Ford employees being largely unable to
| drive. Which I hope is not the case...
| jstarfish wrote:
| Nobody actually eats their own dogfood. They ply you with
| wine while they drink grape juice, waiting to take
| advantage of the drunk fool.
|
| Fucking _Zoom_ declared mandatory RTO, which says a lot
| about what they sell the rest of us on.
|
| And Ford...heh. Despite incentives, their own employees
| refused to buy their cars to such an extent that competitor
| vehicles were banned or relegated to remote parking lots.
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna11057921
| jedberg wrote:
| > their own employees refused to buy their cars to such
| an extent that competitor vehicles were banned or
| relegated to remote parking lots
|
| That's actually a good thing! It means they took it
| seriously, and their employees were incentivized to fix
| the problems so that they actually wanted to drive the
| company's cars.
| Kiro wrote:
| I'm one of those. If I get the chance to work from home I do
| everything in my power to slack off and fake it. No tools or
| processes can stop me. I find ways to exploit everything and
| game the system to make it look like I'm working when I'm
| not.
| bellgrove wrote:
| Slightly of off topic, but how did Fridman get to the point that
| he could pull big tech C-execs and celebrities onto his podcast?
| He has such a monotone voice (no shade meant, I am the same way,
| no matter how hard I try otherwise) and - this might just be
| personal taste - but I feel like this unedited long-form
| interview format is the lowest bar. I would have thought that an
| excellent interviewer would generally be considered one who is
| efficient at extracting interesting data (or can at least edit it
| to appear so) and can engage with & challenge the interviewee;
| long-form seems like the opposite of this.
| ShamelessC wrote:
| He kisses ass and helps replenish/bolster their image. See the
| Elon interviews where Elon clearly has no clue what he's
| talking about.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| Be predictable, throw softballs and never challenge anything.
| Easy as that.
| relativ575 wrote:
| Really? you don't think there are many people like that? how
| successful have they become?
| [deleted]
| v3d2 wrote:
| Yeah learn how to scan entire rooms and beam it into my head
| without me having to strap a screen to my head (as small as it
| is) and then we can talk.
| milliams wrote:
| Why does it sound like he's saying "Kodak" instead of "codec" (at
| ~3:19 in the video)?
| Raed667 wrote:
| So now Facebook not only has your pictures and videos but a full
| 3D body scan.
|
| Nothing bad could ever come of that /s
| stonogo wrote:
| I listened to the entire hour when this got posted earlier today.
| I still have no idea what the point is here. Does anyone have a
| better use case for this technology than was presented in this
| video?
| ckbishop wrote:
| This seems like an incredible waste of resources that will
| invariably lead to work attire invading my remote work life.
| Veto.
|
| The tech is cool but I'm wary of continuing to evolve the
| Internet to reward people for their physical appearance rather
| than their intellectual contributions.
| aierou wrote:
| There is ongoing research that would allow you to dress up your
| avatar however you would like.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAcavi6aOGY
| crooked-v wrote:
| Virtually dressing every day seems like a lot of work
| compared to just using an avatar that has your favorite three
| or four variations baked in, not to mention the basic
| assumption there that everyone wants to be a realistic (or
| realistically shaped) human and not a robot or an anime
| exaggeration of the human frame.
| airstrike wrote:
| I'd like to be a robot, personally
| burcs wrote:
| I could honestly see this being the future of remote working, you
| still want face-to-face time, here you have it. Want to sit next
| to people in an "office" you can do it all virtually now. Of
| course you will need to add in the ability to draw on a
| whiteboard that's also rendered virtually, and a water cooler in
| the corner.
| brigadier132 wrote:
| The biggest problem with remote communication isn't presence.
| It's latency. You really feel it when you have those situations
| where people constantly talk over each other.
| capableweb wrote:
| Well, except the fact that you lose out on spontaneous meeting
| points like someone heading to the kitchen while you're heading
| somewhere else and suddenly one of you remembers this one thing
| and a conversation happens in the hallway.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| All of the hallway conversations I've had have been
| diversions.
| bryancoxwell wrote:
| I've heard so much about magical hallway meetings since work
| from home became a thing over the past few years but I cannot
| once remember having one.
| hnreport wrote:
| [flagged]
| capableweb wrote:
| > but I cannot once remember having one.
|
| Maybe it depends on the person(s) involved? ;)
|
| Bell Labs is a famous example where it seems to have played
| a role (together with the people working there of course,
| and other variables).
|
| > But just as important was the culture of collaboration
| that the company fostered. The leaders of Bell Labs
| understood that physical proximity could spark innovation,
| and they designed its facilities to bring experts together
| in both deliberate and unexpected ways.
|
| > At Bell Labs' headquarters complex in suburban Murray
| Hill, New Jersey, all of the laboratory spaces connected to
| a single, vast corridor, longer than two football fields.
| Great minds were bound to cross paths there, leading
| inevitably to spontaneous and meaningful interactions. As
| author Jon Gertner writes in The Idea Factory: Bell Labs
| and the Great Age of American Innovation, "a physicist on
| his way to lunch in the cafeteria was like a magnet rolling
| past iron filings." Throughout the labs, employees were
| instructed to work with their doors open, the better to
| promote the free flow of ideas.
|
| https://som.medium.com/learning-from-bell-labs-b351ea09e74c
| seoulmetro wrote:
| Nope. Mark your coffee breaks in software like you do in
| Slack, then your avatar can just be standing in the coffee
| room or company cafe and people will be jogged there.
|
| It's exactly the same. You can have the avatars doing
| anything you want, there is no difference.
|
| Want them to do a pass by every desk in the office when they
| go to the kitchen, or bathroom? Possible. Want to turn that
| option off to get down to work? Possible.
|
| It's cool.
| euiq wrote:
| Is this a situation that you find yourself in frequently
| (with serious work sparked by chance conversations)? It
| sounds awfully cliche.
| capableweb wrote:
| Guess it depends on what you think is frequently, maybe
| once or twice a year when working in a office setting.
| Always happened at small companies, and usually what was
| sparked in the conversation had a big impact on what the
| company worked on.
| Insanity wrote:
| No, but that's what the higher ups want to believe. :)
| jedberg wrote:
| Hallway conversations make sense when everyone works in the
| same building. As soon as you have two buildings, it just
| ends up excluding people.
|
| RTO makes sense if everyone in the company is working in the
| same building and sharing spaces for the same reason.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| People already join always-on video calls. Adding a VR headset
| doesn't seem like a clear improvement.
| brap wrote:
| Probably couldn't have chosen 2 worse people to demonstrate the
| range of human facial expressions
| patagonia wrote:
| Such a negative, ad hominem attack of a comment. The technology
| is breathtaking. The two people have each contributed so much.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| I thought Fridman was just a podcast guy? Not that that's
| quite nothing, but there are a lot of podcast guys.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Fridman is a rabbit hole, you'll find detractors and
| defenders and slanderers.
|
| The debate has already been had so i'll just link it
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32348302
| tinycombinator wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_Fridman
|
| Lex Fridman is a Russian-American computer scientist,
| podcaster, and writer. He is an artificial intelligence
| researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
| and hosts the Lex Fridman Podcast, a podcast and YouTube
| series.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| That's an inadequate description
| nradov wrote:
| Lex Fridman has also done original research on robotics and
| computer vision detection of facial expressions. Here is
| one of his papers; there are several others on related
| areas.
|
| https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8751968/
| PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote:
| it was a tongue-in-cheek joke referencing a meme.
|
| You were meant to chuckle at it, not take it seriously.
| matthewaveryusa wrote:
| They also made the same joke in the interview itself
| faitswulff wrote:
| It's to be expected with beta products. Emotions have been on
| the Zuckerberg 1.0 roadmap since the beginning. I don't know
| about Fridman, though.
| malux85 wrote:
| Mark Zuckerberg testifying in congress reminds me of the Star
| Trek movie First Contact when Data was starting to feel
| anxious around the Borg, so he disabled his emotion chip.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| Honestly though he handled that extremely well and made it
| backfire.
|
| Congressional hearings are purely for political
| grandstanding. The low height seat countered with a
| cushion, the dumb questions answered with direct
| unemotional answers. 'we sell ads senator'. The entire
| process had nothing come out of it except a few politicians
| had egg on their face.
| malux85 wrote:
| "Data, there are times when I envy you"
| [deleted]
| vagab0nd wrote:
| Sure, but from a technical point of view I don't think the
| range of human facial expressions is that wide anyway. It's
| just movements of muscles.
| brap wrote:
| Hi mark
| codetrotter wrote:
| I Did Not Hit Her. I Did Not.
| davesque wrote:
| My impression is that the device isn't able to track all of the
| face's subtle movements so the avatars come across as seeming
| relatively expressionless. For example, I noticed that Lex's
| and Mark's eyebrows don't seem to move as much as you might
| expect given the emotions communicated by their voices. I
| assume this is either because the device literally restricts
| the movements of the eyebrows (perhaps they're pressed down
| under the headband) or it just isn't able to track them that
| well.
| tejohnso wrote:
| It's not a range test demo. It's a real conversation with real
| people who aren't prone to melodrama.
|
| As mentioned in the video by Lex, it's the subtleties that make
| all the difference. I'm astonished with the accuracy of the
| blinking, mouth movements, subtle cheek variations, etc. It
| seems more accurate than the realtime feed from my webcam. The
| only thing I wouldn't like about it is having to wear a headset
| in order to experience it.
| capableweb wrote:
| If you haven't gotten very far with the "photorealistic" part,
| maybe you couldn't have chosen 2 better people for the demo?
| cush wrote:
| While these avatars seem pretty accurate, a conversation between
| two completely robotic humans might not be the best showcase of
| how far off we are from "feels like a real conversation"
| jrflowers wrote:
| Wow Zuckerberg looks exactly as real here as he does in every
| photo
| 303uru wrote:
| I hate this so much. It's technically awesome, but I want nothing
| to do with it. If I want face to face time, I'll get face to face
| time. My fear is this is going to be shoved down our throats and
| WFH will become work while being monitored with your meta on.
| There may be cool applications for disabled persons or isolated
| folks like the elderly. But I do not want to be on this all day.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Also, I think it's pretty telling that the people who _do_ want
| to be in VR all day, like dedicated VRChat users or the handful
| of people who actually work in VR collaboration apps, generally
| go for either vaguely humanlike abstract avatars (see: any
| screenshot of Bigscreen Beyond), or wildly un-ordinary robots,
| impractical anime people, favorite cartoon characters, etc
| (see: all of VRChat).
| jtbayly wrote:
| It's impressive, yes, but the lips are off and delayed. It's
| pretty bad compared to video.
| matthewaveryusa wrote:
| Here's a neat article from Nvidia that goes more into the
| bandwidth savings and some side-by-sides of ML + keypoint vs.
| compression[1]
|
| Six years ago I went to an arcade called the rec room in Toronto
| where they have a ghostbusters AR game I got to experience with
| friends[2]. To this day I still have vivide memories of the
| experience. When it was all done, we all sat around for 15
| minutes in complete silence, just recovering from the experience.
| I understand the skepticism about the metaverse, but after that
| experience there's no doubt in my mind it's the future -- you
| really need to experience it to get a sense of what a more
| polished version of this feels like.
|
| [1] https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2020/10/05/gan-video-
| conferenc... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar9YwEv2ACk
| uoaei wrote:
| Seems like the kind of thing that should lower transmission
| bandwidth once they get it sorted out. Send the body model once
| and just articulate the joints/muscles. Probably on the order of
| 1kB/frame assuming FP16, I'm sure you could do better with
| compression and diffing.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| Lex Fridman makes Zuckerberg seem like Robin Williams.
| punkiln wrote:
| That is a very impressive demo. Does anyone know if the details
| of the codec, and the measurements used by the headset to
| generate the facial stream, have been publicly released yet?
|
| The interview gets quite interesting nearer the end where
| Zuckerberg talks about his vision for the future, like training
| AI-backed avatars to simulate real people. Which apparently is
| not far off from reality - they joke about Fridman doing a
| podcast where he interviews an AI version of himself in the near
| future. Reminds me a bit of that Black Mirror episode where Miley
| Cyrus' character has AI versions of herself contained, or
| trapped, within consumer electronics.
|
| It also occurs to me that this could be a useful technology for
| people with social anxiety who have to endure uncontrollable
| blushing when conversing in real life, or people with awkward
| facial tics. These could be filtered out or not even recorded
| before being encoded for transmission, while still giving a
| realistic appearance, making for a more comfortable presentation
| of the real-virtual self.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Zuckerberg talks about his vision for the future, like
| training AI-backed avatars to simulate real people
|
| This vision of the future sounds like a nightmare to me.
| [deleted]
| zonkerdonker wrote:
| An entire fully "rigged" version of your face is generated from
| thousands of high resolution photos using a variety of facial
| expressions, distilled down into a model. Data from eye
| tracking and the cameras on the HMD are used to estimate the
| position of your face, lips, eyes etc, which is then fed into
| the pregenerated rigged model to be rendered.
| luismedel wrote:
| I wonder how much post processing this has. Does these glasses
| reproduce eye blink too? (honest question)
| martythemaniak wrote:
| Yes. These are Quest Pro headsets, which have eye tracking, so
| they should be able to pick up blinks, squints, winks etc.
| Apple Vision Pro should also be capable of this.
| luismedel wrote:
| Very interesting. Thanks!
| crooked-v wrote:
| Apple Vision Pro previews have showed off not-quite-photo-
| real avatars [1] that feel like they're intentionally toned
| down slightly into 'good but obviously artificial CG
| animation' territory to avoid uncanny valley issues.
|
| [1]: https://www.zdnet.com/article/meet-your-digital-persona-
| appl...
| airstrike wrote:
| I'm quite surprised with the overall negative reactions on this
| thread. It's like everyone's saying "why do we need emails if we
| already have the fax machine?" when this truly feels like the
| future
|
| Sure, there's post-processing, scanning your face with this level
| of definition may take some work currently and the full screen
| video we see may feel very different for someone wearing those
| goggles, but these should all be solved as the technology
| improves
|
| You can fight it all you want, but if it's half as good IRL as
| this demo suggests, it's obviously here to stay.
|
| Criticism so far seems to make the same few points:
|
| _> "Hell, now remote work is ruined. Thanks, Zuckerberg"_
|
| I actually think this may _help_ enable remote work in the long
| run as companies who are unwilling to accept the current WFH
| /hybrid models see this as a viable compromise.
|
| More importantly, when I call my supplier in Belgium, I'll be
| able to see them "face-to-face" (avatar-to-avatar?) and develop a
| more human relationship than just exchanging emails or phone
| calls.
|
| _> "Great, social relationships are going to be even worse"_
|
| If that's the use you want to make of it, sure. But it also
| enables you to connect with loved ones who live far away. It can
| be so powerful for the elderly who struggle with loneliness to
| feel closer to their family.
|
| _> "These two guys are terrible at conveying emotions with
| facial expressions"_
|
| Ad hominem notwithstanding, if anything this is an endorsement of
| the casting choice for a tech demo since their expressions would
| be easier to replicate in the virtual world
| bookaway wrote:
| In classic HN fashion I think there will have have been more
| positive comments added by the time you finished posting your
| comment.
|
| > "These two guys are terrible at conveying emotions with
| facial expressions"
|
| Fridman anticipates and addresses this reaction at the 10:08
| minute mark in the video as well, so for the people that
| watched it these type of comments will unfortunately come off
| as unoriginal and stale. Either the people saying that didn't
| get that far or they felt the need to make the comment anyway.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Aren't the benefits (with your supplier and loved ones) also
| equally achieved by using videoconferencing that's available
| today?
| airstrike wrote:
| They are achieved, but not in an equally immersive way. If
| you believe "more immersive = better" for those situations,
| then this is an improvement. I'm inclined to believe most
| (non-HN) people would take that position.
| SaberTail wrote:
| I don't want to be a photorealistic version of my human self.
| That seems so limited and boring.
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| They discuss this at some point in the podcast, Zuck
| specifically saying he is interested in whether the future is
| photorealistic or more abstract and commenting on some
| interesting tests they have run that have mixed the two
| together.
| punkiln wrote:
| I was a bit disappointed they didn't try swapping avatars with
| each other. Would've been interesting to see the effect of two
| people temporarily inhabiting each other's skin, albeit
| virtually.
|
| I wonder if it could be useful technology in helping face
| transplant patients get used to their new features, in advance
| of the operation. A virtual mirror, with a reflection of the
| future.
| pavon wrote:
| Sure, but the same technology is what enables you to be a
| photo-realistic Kzin. Once you have eye, mouth, and body
| tracking, an effective way to transmit that information in
| realtime, and a way to apply those motions realistically to a
| model, then you can swap it out with any compatible model.
| ilyt wrote:
| Yeah I don't get how they looked at SecondLife and VRChat and
| went "no, people don't want that, people want to be entirely
| themselves in virtual world".
| kipchak wrote:
| I think both are useful. If I'm talking with my Mom, or most
| people I would talk to on Facebook or say Linkedin it seems
| like a good fit but not most other places. Having an avatar
| in public places with randoms and the option for a realistic
| version in private places seems useful.
| refsted wrote:
| Excellent for capitalizing on parasocial relationships.
| brap wrote:
| So how come they are able do this in real time, on a headset,
| over the internet, yet next gen gaming consoles don't even get
| close to that level of detail?
| jarde wrote:
| Game consoles have lots of other details to worry about like
| the background (this demo is just an empty black background),
| NPCs and everything they need to do, game logic, physics, etc
| capableweb wrote:
| Games do a lot more than just "render a high quality bust of a
| person", you have whole environments and entire systems that
| are interactive. Most technical demos get away with higher
| fidelity because of this, and when you finally see it
| implemented in games, they've been scaled back a lot.
| eep_social wrote:
| Yuge pipes.
|
| I've had the pleasure of sitting on a network that was, in
| practice, not bandwidth limited and it has led me to conclude
| that the terrible experience in practice is caused by retail
| ISPs being absolute dogshit. If you can get on a really well
| run ISP like Fiber7 in Switzerland, or a $BigCorp network,
| things are much better and demos like this are no problem.
| itsyaboi wrote:
| They talk about their low bandwidth avatar codec in the first 5
| minutes of the interview.
| jedberg wrote:
| Holy uncanny valley Batman!
|
| I think it's pretty cool but a bit jarring. I think I'd rather
| have the cartoonish avatars until this gets a little better. It's
| a good start though!
|
| And I agree that seeing facial expressions is critical for the
| best interactions.
| Kiro wrote:
| I disagree. I would absolutely have thought this was real if
| no-one told me. It's only the first few seconds of the video
| that look uncanny.
| sixQuarks wrote:
| I think it's only uncanny valley on Mark Zuckerberg. The dude
| looks uncanny in real life.
| bookaway wrote:
| This looks amazing and the wow factor is probably due to the fact
| that it came out of the blue -- not a day went by in 2023 without
| the Metaverse being a favorite punching bag for tech writers.
|
| Now someone do a PGP version of the Codec Avatar, where facebook
| included can't access the raw data, but streaming is still
| possible. Otherwise we get the Meta version of Worldcoin and
| merrily continue on the "we're completely fucked" branch of this
| multiverse.
| topper-123 wrote:
| They should have waited for this and skipped the legless avatars.
| IKantRead wrote:
| Zuckerberg's "vision" is so hilariously and transparently: "I
| want to build a new internet so I can own it all from the very
| start, inject ads and tracking into places never dreamed of
| before and take a cut from everyone who participates in this
| brave new world!"
| pmarreck wrote:
| That's pretty impressive. Certainly helps bridge some of the gap
| lost from remote 2D video collaboration/discussion.
| Oarch wrote:
| This is impressive, hilarious and cringe all at once.
|
| We need to invent a new word for this sensation.
| kayge wrote:
| Uncanny Silicon Valley
| zardo wrote:
| Impressive, he has legs.
| spondyl wrote:
| Perhaps it's a feature but I wonder how jarring the lack of
| progression would be given the static nature of models?
|
| If you were to chat with someone daily for a year, you'd never
| see their hair grow (or get cut) for example but then I suppose
| we never actively think of these things, just notice when they
| change.
| Raed667 wrote:
| I have this issue with Zoom as well, when people have their
| perfectly selected picture from 5 years ago for so long, then
| at one point they turn on their camera and you can't help but
| see the difference between both.
| fallat wrote:
| I gotta say all I see is narcissism when looking at those
| photos. I much prefer ones that have nothing to do with the
| person's face
| JohnFen wrote:
| On Teams, I don't have a picture of myself as my avatar at
| all. I'm very happy with it just being my initials.
| kevinsync wrote:
| Red Dead Redemption 2 (5 years old at this point) has natural
| hair growth, barber shops, hygiene, body shapes that change
| based on diet, plus a host of other time-oriented realistic
| simulation. [1][2]
|
| It's just a matter of time before this stuff is incorporated
| into what we're seeing here.
|
| [1] https://screenrant.com/rdr2-hair-growth-length-time-tonic-
| sp...
|
| [2] https://www.watchmojo.com/articles/10-most-realistic-
| feature...
| codetrotter wrote:
| Zuckerberg said that he wished that it will be a 3 to 5 minute
| process to scan your face.
|
| When they achieve that, it will be quick and simple to update
| your scan.
|
| The people that keep an old scan at that point are the same
| people that also keep an old photo as their profile picture
| anyways, and it's often not due to the technology.
|
| Some are too lazy to update profile pictures no matter how
| simple it is. Some people don't know how to do it no matter how
| simple, but that's more rare. And some people purposely choose
| to keep an old photo because they want to be seen the way that
| they once were rather than the way that they are now.
|
| Me for one, I will keep my 3d scan up to date every now and
| then. Say, every few months or so. Just like how I currently
| update my profile picture every few months on platforms that I
| actively use. (For example, I've been at my current company for
| about a year now, and in that time I've changed my Slack and
| company GitLab profile pics one time - from the picture I chose
| when I joined, to a new up to date photo).
|
| Anyway. I am sure that if people stick to old scans, the
| Metaverse companies will eventually counter that by virtually
| "aging" the scanned models that people use. So that even if you
| don't change your scanned model, the Metaverses will add grey
| hairs, wrinkles, etc to it over time.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > Perhaps it's a feature but I wonder how jarring the lack of
| progression would be given the static nature of models?
|
| They talked about this in the recording, calling out
| (not/)shaving and weight fluctuations may or may not be
| reflected.
|
| My own thoughts: we partially already there, considering people
| hardly update their static avatars/profile/professional
| headshot pictures on a weekly basis . We're inching towards the
| "Residual Self-image" of the Matrix universe
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-09-28 23:02 UTC)