Dr Hao Li, Director of Vision and Graphics Lab, Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) at the University of Southern California (USC) and Dr Sarah Atkinson Senior Lecturer in Digital Cultures, Head of the Department of Culture, Media & Creative Industries, King’s College London gave a futuristic IET EngTalks inspired by Sir Edward Appleton.Dr Li spoke of how it is possible to superimpose human movements into a 3D Avatar with AI enhancements. So for example, his beta research technology lets you take a simple photo on your smart device and from that, you can automatically generate a full 3D rendering - all using everyday technology. He mentioned during Q&A that as the AI software gets device friendly, more and more user devices will take advantage of edge computing to process the AI images. Amongst many AI techniques, he also talked through how his team worked on the Fast & Furious 7 movie to complete Paul Walkers scenes.


Dr Atkinson spoke about how deepfakes are likely to increase as new technologies start to augment real life. She spoke about how not only fake news could impact the mood of an election, but also how any prominent individual can be simulated to deliver fake news using a deepfake avatar.


Speaking with Dr Li, I asked about how security is considered when designing the use of AI avatars beyond entertainment or gaming applications, and just like Dr Atkinsons talk, he mentioned that fail safes are likely to be introduced i.e. security by design. We then spoke about how some of his AI techniques do not actually need to use a database to generate content.


Cyber Security knows of the Stenography technique and how it is possible to hide a code inside a digital picture, in the case of AI deepfake avatars, without security by design, we might see a new mechanism to deliver the malware payload !


The IET EngTalk can be found here.

Details of the event can be found here.