*This seminar will be held in-person in Levine 307 as well as virtually via Zoom. 

ABSTRACT

In this keynote, I will talk about our latest research on creating photo-realistic AI Avatars. Here, our main goal is to create virtual characters that can are visually indistinguishable from photos and videos of real people. Further, we aim to control such avatars with multi-modal control signals such as animation rigs, text, or voice in order to replicate real-world conversations and leverage our avatars for 3D content creation. Ultimately, we aim to witness the evolution of photos and videos into interactive, holographic 3D content that is indistinguishable from the physical reality. To this end, we focus on the possibility of capturing and sharing 3D photos with friends, family, or through social media platforms. Imagine the ability to comprehensively document historical events along with the participating people for future generations, or to generate content for upcoming applications in augmented and virtual reality.