This year at CES 2020, there was hype of Samsung Neon Project which is most unique tech projects unveiled yet. Neon is an “Artificial Human” designed by Samsung Technology and Advanced Research Labs(STAR Labs). Neon project is actually a chat bot which is basically a humanoid Artificial Intelligence (AI) avatar or simply super realistic digital people. Neon is described by STAR Labs as “a computationally created virtual being that looks and behaves like a real human, with the ability to show emotions and intelligence”.
Samsung’s Neon makes video chatbots that look and act real like humans and can answer or help you by giving you company and serving you as a friend. The chat bot is not as smart as an AI so it won’t provide true AI assistant. Neon chat bot doesnot intend to be all-knowing i.e. you can’t ask anything or everything and expect and answer.
“Neons are not AI assistants,” the company said. “Neons are more like us, and independent but virtual living being, who can show emotions and learn from experiences. Unlike AI assistants, Neons do not know all, and they are not an interface to the internet to ask for weather updates or to play your favourite music.”
Neon chatbots are designed to have conversations like real humans. They learn and form different skills. “Neon is like a new kind of life”, as per the CEO of STAR Labs Pranav Mistry. “There are millions of species on our planet and we hope to add one more.” Neon chatbots can help you with “goal-oriented tasks or can be personalized to assist in tasks that require human touch.” Mistry added “We always want to make technology more human.”
“In the near future, one will be able to license or subscribe to a NEON as a service representative, a financial advisor, a healthcare provider, or a concierge. Over time, NEONs will work as TV anchors, spokespeople, or movie actors; or they can simply be companions and friends.”
The teaser images and videos of NEON project seems annoyingly fake as per the company. Company explains to have shown only scenarios at promotional event and CES Booth where they told that the contents are fictional and simulated. So for actual we do not know what Neon’s avatar will look like.
The avatar of Neon project is generated computationally which will do conversations with user with “emotions and intelligence” as said by the company.
Core R3 is the technology that powers the avatar. Reality, Realtime and Responsive forms Core R3. This allows the avatar to answer a question asked in few milliseconds.
Privacy and Security
“CORE R3 can computationally create lifelike reality that is beyond normal perception to distinguish,” Neon stated in its FAQ. For the questions like the avatar can be used for deepfakes, video manipulation to show real people saying something that they didn’t and do something that they didn’t. Neon stated that while the avatar is based on appearance of real person, the technology used is different from deepfakes. And it doesnot manipulate an individual scene, videos or sequences. The unique behavior and interactions is realtime that never happened before which means Core R3 creates new realities.
Summary
Neon is just demoing its project but it is still approximately three to four years away for being available to everyone. This shows us what science boundaries can do and the demos are a very early preview of technology. We have to wait to see the technology getting developed like this every now and then.
