They say the world is getting smaller. But with increasingly more household and buddies dwelling far aside and enterprise being achieved throughout lengthy distances, it might probably nonetheless really feel very large. What a private {and professional} enhance then for individuals to have the power to mission their sensible presences into a spot hundreds of miles away.
This lesser-known utility of AI, generally known as ‘telepresence’1, is among the focuses of the Samsung AI Center in Moscow. Samsung Newsroom spoke to Dr. Victor Lempitsky, who leads Samsung’s Moscow AI Center, to search out out extra about what his heart is engaged on and what he sees for the way forward for AI.
AI and Telepresence
The overarching analysis space that Samsung’s Moscow AI Center works on is that of ‘machine learning’, which is a core AI functionality that encompasses the areas of language understanding, pc imaginative and prescient and information evaluation. Specifically, the middle works on next-generation core expertise for machine studying, in addition to the options that may permit them to use this expertise to picture and video creation.
“We work on vision learning and telepresence,” Lempitsky relates, “which means developing new experiences that make users who are far apart feel as much like they’re physically together as possible.” It could not initially be clear how precisely AI is pertinent to the world of ‘telepresence’, however Lempitsky explains. “We use computer vision and machine learning to recognize and learn human motions. Then, we use those learned motions to complete a realistic simulation of a person.”
“The ‘Neural Network Rendering’ project has been one of the Moscow AI Center’s major achievements,” Lempitsky continues, “It involved using neural networks to render humans as so-called ‘neural avatars’.”
Asked about different functions for this expertise, Lempitsky explains that, “It has made it possible for us to create a 3D digital version of a person’s head from just a single image,” and that “It can also be utilized for a wide range of telepresence applications.”
Awards Success
Russia is globally distinguished in the case of foundational topic areas reminiscent of arithmetic, physics and supply expertise. As such, the Moscow AI Center is anticipated to be a driving drive in the case of main the AI developments of the longer term.
Due to the groundbreaking work achieved by its professional personnel, the Moscow AI Center has accrued a powerful checklist of awards and nominations.
In 2018, the Moscow AI Center received a contest initiated by NeurIPS (Neural Information Processing Systems), the world’s greatest AI convention. The heart additionally achieved significant outcomes on the ECCV (European Conference on Computer Vision) and ICCV (International Conference on Computer Vision).
Lempitsky himself was additionally awarded a Scopus Award in 2018 for his contributions to the trade. Scopus is the world’s largest international base of peer-reviewed scientific literature, and the award is given to extremely cited Russian researchers.
Samsung Devices to Optimize Computer Vision
Samsung has introduced that it plans to attach the greater than 500 million gadgets it sells annually and make them clever. Asked how the Moscow AI Center is contributing to this imaginative and prescient, Lempitsky remarks that Samsung has broad experience in the case of {hardware}. He factors out that an growing variety of gadgets now incorporate in-device cameras and visible sensors, illustrating that pc imaginative and prescient expertise is barely set to turn into increasingly more instrumental to the trade going ahead.
“Our center’s mission is to provide state-of-the-art computer vision software to underpin Samsung’s top-of-the-line hardware and service. I think that’s how we fit in to the wider vision and provide convenience to consumers.”
The Future of AI
Asked what he expects to see over the subsequent 50 years of AI improvement, Lempitsky notes…