Podcasts about photorealistic

Are you still bullish on artificial intelligence for marketing? I am, even despite the AI hype cycle starting to run its course. Yes, more people are asking, “What's the point… The post Revisiting What Marketers Really Need to Know About Putting AI to Work (Thinks Out Loud appeared first on Tim Peter & Associates.

00:16 - Photorealistic avatars- Full pod at www.youtube.com/@thisweekinpreipostocks- Tiktok avatars for advertising announced- HeyGen round at $500m (built on top of OpenAI/ElevenLabs, $24/month subscription fee, 40,000 customers, $35m ARR in 2023)- Dillon uses ElevenLabs to publish research video in chinese and Spanish- Disruption in the entertainment industry by AI-generated content and avatars18:42 - More secondary market dislocation- Full pod at www.youtube.com/@thisweekinpreipostocks- Revolut at $40b, secondary at $23b … 75% higher vs secondary- UP dislocation: Scale AI closed $13.8b valuation, secondaries at $7.4b last week- DOWN disclocation: Anduril targeting $12.5 valuation, secondaries at $13.2b and Groq targeting $3.0b valuation, secondaries at $4.4b- Are secondaries misjudging company valuations or are companies “managing” their valuations- Time between primary rounds is a factor to secondary market price accuracy24:08 - Tender offers – good for companies, good for investors?- Full pod at www.youtube.com/@thisweekinpreipostocks- VCs need liquidity, DPI back to LPs (distribute cash back to investors)- Employees need liquidity; options expire, life (house, wedding, kids in college, etc)- Structured tenders (e.g. a tender every year or every 6 months) is smart; natural price for stock, no surprises/volatility once stock is public and out of blackout window- Secondary funds are popping up all over the place … SecondaryLink highlights a new fund every week that is raising billions to buy these assets- No IPO for Stripe? “…tenders to happen annually going forward…”

If you're like most people, you might think of anniversaries as a time for looking back. Not me. Usually, I prefer to look ahead. But, this year, I'm making an… The post Lessons Learned: The TPA Anniversary Show (Thinks Out Loud Episode 420) appeared first on Tim Peter & Associates.

In this study, we propose AniPortrait, a novel framework for generating high-quality animation driven by audio and a reference portrait image. Our methodology is divided into two stages. Initially, we extract 3D intermediate representations from audio and project them into a sequence of 2D facial landmarks. Subsequently, we employ a robust diffusion model, coupled with a motion module, to convert the landmark sequence into photorealistic and temporally consistent portrait animation. Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of AniPortrait in terms of facial naturalness, pose diversity, and visual quality, thereby offering an enhanced perceptual experience. Moreover, our methodology exhibits considerable potential in terms of flexibility and controllability, which can be effectively applied in areas such as facial motion editing or face reenactment. We release code and model weights at https://github.com/scutzzj/AniPortrait 2024: Huawei Wei, Zejun Yang, Zhisheng Wang https://arxiv.org/pdf/2403.17694v1.pdf

I'm calling it: We've reached “peak AI.” There's too much hype. With over $50B in venture capital investment in 2023 and literally thousands of “AI focused companies” in marketing technology… The post Why You Need to Ignore the Coming AI Backlash (Thinks Out Loud Episode 417) appeared first on Tim Peter & Associates.

As noted in the past, with all the hype and hope attached to artificial intelligence, it's worth asking, is it time for your marketing team — is it time for… The post Revisiting Is It Time for Your Marketing Team to Use AI? (Thinks Out Loud) appeared first on Tim Peter & Associates.

OpenAI's entry into generative AI video is an impressive first step. Read this story here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

00:10 | Neuralink implants computer chip in human brain- FDA approved human trials in May 2023- Goal is allow quadriplegics to control a phone or computer with their thoughts, product is called Neuralink Telepathy- 11 human surgeries planned in 2024- $3.9b secondary market implied valuation, +12.5% from last primary round in Nov 202301:35 | FTX to make creditors whole!- Restructuring advisers told bankruptcy judge that FTX creditors are likely to be made whole- FTX Dec 2023 cash reserve is now $4.4b- Top 50 FTX creditors are owed $3.1b- FTX posted a $32.5b valuation in a Jan 2022 primary round, company was bankrupt in late 2022- FTX invested $500m into Anthropic AI at a $4b valuation (12.5% stake) … Anthropic raising now at $18b valuation putting FTX's stake at $2.25b03:55 | Astera Labs $4b IPO in Mar 2024- Make AI-focused data center infrastructure, proper AI picks and shovels play- $3.15b valuation in May 2023 primary round- 2024 revenue projected to be $250m to $300m putting valuation at 13x to 16x revenue- Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan are bankers05:21 | Apple Vision Pro + AR and photorealistic avatars- $3,500 Apple Vision Pro is now available for sale, 400k units expected to be sold in 2024 for $1.4b total revenue- Vision Pro will unleash a new set of tech companies similar to the app companies the iPhone powers, great VC investor opportunity- End state of this technology is an eye contact and earpiece (or maybe a Neuralink chip in brain)- AR and photorealistic avatars have potential to disrupt business travel … airlines, hotels … as business can easily reduce T&E expense08:28 | Pre-IPO +1.13% for week- Week winners: Cohere +25.2%, Revolut +11.8%, Epic Games 11.2%, Rippling +9.1%, Discord +8.9%- Week losers: Snyk -29.2%, Brex -12.7%, Deel -6.9%, Flexport -6.1%, Anthropic -5.2% - Top valuations: ByteDance $285b, SpaceX $185b, OpenAI $92b, Stripe $57b, Databricks $48bInvest in pre-IPO stocks with AG Dillon Funds - www.agdillon.com

The crew of the G.A.R.Y continue their search for their best friend Sultan. Eclipse Webpage Majestic Goose Website Tabletop Audio Majestic Goose Discord Community: https://discord.com/invite/BQyEbaS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Microsoft's Copilot key for PC keyboards, Samsung's upcoming AI advancements in their smartphone series, a framework for generating photorealistic avatars that gesture according to conversational dynamics, and MIT CSAIL's exploration of how language models learn about the visual world and their potential for training visual representation learning systems. Contact:  sergi@earkind.com Timestamps: 00:34 Introduction 01:37 Microsoft wants to add a Copilot key to your PC keyboard 02:59 Galaxy Unpacked 2024: Opening a New Era of Mobile AI 04:53 Efficient LLM inference 06:15 Fake sponsor 08:20 From Audio to Photoreal Embodiment: Synthesizing Humans in Conversations 09:50 Incremental FastPitch: Chunk-based High Quality Text to Speech 11:04 A Vision Check-up for Language Models 13:00 Outro

The boys talk graphics. New DLSS mod, Nintendo switch flashcart announcement What does the future look like, how will art styles leverage newer tech to push their creative vision? Send us some mail at: gameboysadvancedpod@gmail.com and follow us on TWITTER: @gameboysadv

Just seven months after its beta debut, Adobe's Firefly generative AI is set to receive a trio of new models as well as more than 100 new features and capabilities, company executives announced at the Adobe Max 2023 event on Tuesday.

00:29 | Zuckerberg will change the world with augmented reality - Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, was interviewed by podcaster Lex Fridman using Meta-driven photorealistic avatars in the metaverse- Fridman, an MIT professor, was deeply moved by the experience predicting photorealistic avatars could “change the world”- Zuckerberg highlighted that very soon Meta will have augmented reality solutions to hologram people into real-world settings for business or personal use- Photorealistic avatars have potential to disrupt the airline, hotel, and office real estate sectors10:58 | Recent IPOs were a success- Instacart, Klaviyo, and Arm all went IPO in the last 2-3 weeks.…Arm: IPOed at $51/share, now at $53.92 (+5.7%), market cap $55b…Instacart: IPOed at $30/share, now at $29.70 (-1%), market cap $8.2b…Klaviyo: IPOed at $30/share, now at $35 (+17%), market cap $8.7b- IPOs were a success as IPO price held and investors now have liquidity- Stripe, Databricks, Reddit, others may look to IPO now- Pre-IPO stocks need to give investors and employees liquidity options22:19 | How to play the AI investment opportunity - OpenAI announced a valuation of $90b, up from a previous $29b- Anthropic announced Amazon is taking a minority stake at an undisclosed valuation (north $10b?)- AWS will be the cloud and chip provider for Anthropic and will also sell Anthropic AI through AWS, similar to OpenAI's partnership with Microsoft.- Companies are getting valuations based on a 30x revenue multiple on projected “forward revenue”- OpenAI previously announced $1b of revenue for the year, justifying its $29 billion valuation … predictions for next year's of “a few billion” revenue could justify the $90b valuation- Winners could be those AI companies that partner with major cloud providers: Cohere with Oracle, Anthropic with Amazon, OpenAI with Microsoft, and Google's own AI for Google Cloud.- Picks and shovels play are also interesting; Databricks, Hugging Face, Cerebras, Scale AI

Welcome to Integrative Cancer Solutions with Dr. Karlfeldt, where we delve into the challenges faced by cancer patients and explore alternative treatments. In this episode, we have a special guest, Chuck Rinker, who battled and conquered late-stage colon cancer. Now, he utilizes AI avatars to support patients on their healthcare journey. Our main focus is improving outcomes from the patient's perspective. We dive deep into understanding the disease, therapies, and prognosis. With a plethora of inaccurate information online, we discuss the frustration of navigating through outdated data and clinical trials. That's where our AI avatars come in. Chuck introduces us to iHealth Assist, a groundbreaking healthcare assistance product. These digital personalities provide accurate and personalized information to cancer patients. But let's not forget the importance of human interaction in healthcare. We explore the challenges and emphasize the need for improvement. At MD Anderson Center, they've implemented an office assist concierge service that utilizes an avatar to greet and assist patients in their preferred language. This technology maintains a human connection while improving communication and expediting their experience. We also discuss the integration of technology tools in healthcare to enhance efficiency and user experience. Digital avatars can tackle mundane tasks, allowing healthcare workers to focus on specialized care. They provide multilingual options, making the patient experience even better. But what about accuracy? We assure you that our AI avatars undergo active learning, vetted by a team to ensure reliable information. We prioritize human connection and engagement while improving operational efficiencies. Generative AI plays a vital role in healthcare's operational efficiencies and regenerative practices. By analyzing patient interactions, healthcare providers can better understand their needs and tailor services accordingly. This active learning loop leads to better patient experiences and informed decision-making. OpenAI and chat GPT are revolutionizing the healthcare industry. We stress the importance of a high confidence factor and active vetting by healthcare partners. And let's not forget the importance of relatable avatars. Photorealistic humans may creep us out, but human-like characters create emotional bonds. Avatars prove invaluable in clinical trials, aiding in patient consent and recruitment. By providing diverse avatar options, we ensure comfort and trust, especially among underrepresented groups. Female avatars are found to be 75% more trustworthy, enhancing engagement and success rates. But AI is not a replacement, it's a catalyst for human communication. We must maintain ethical control and proper data management. AI enhances human capabilities, just like the stethoscope did in the past. We address ethical and privacy concerns associated with this powerful tool. As AI avatars and human AI gain traction, we must remain open-minded and cautious to prevent misuse. Join us as we explore the potential of this powerful tool and share our personal experiences with cancer. Remember, the information we provide is for educational purposes only. Visit thecarlfeldcenter.com for more information. Tune in to Integrative Cancer Solutions with Dr. Karlfeldt and discover how AI avatars are transforming the cancer journey. - Challenges faced by cancer patients- Chuck Rinker's battle with colon cancer- Importance of accurate information- AI avatars for personalized information- iHealth Assist product development- Balancing human interaction and AI- MD Anderson Center's avatar concierge service- Technology tools to improve efficiency- Prioritizing human expertise- Avoiding inaccurate responses in AI- Incorporating generative AI in healthcare- Improving natural language processing- OpenAI and chat GPT in healthcare- Creating relatable characters and avatars- Avatars in patient consent and recruitment- Avatars for underrepresented groups- Avatars in clinical trials- Designing avatars for specific demographics- AI as a catalyst for human communication- Ethical control and data management- Embracing AI while addressing concerns- Misuse and abuse of AI avatars- Personal experiences with cancer- Educational purposes onlyIntegrative Cancer Solutions was created to instill hope and empowerment. Other people have been where you are right now and have already done the research for you. Listen to their stories and journeys and apply what they learned to achieve similar outcomes as they have, cancer remission and an even more fullness of life than before the diagnosis. Guests will discuss what therapies, supplements, and practitioners they relied on to beat cancer. Once diagnosed, time is of the essence. This podcast will dramatically reduce your learning curve as you search for your own solution to cancer. For more information about products and services discussed in this podcast, please visit www.integrativecancersolutions.com. To learn more about the cutting-edge integrative cancer therapies Dr. Karlfeldt offer at his center, please visit www.TheKarlfeldtCenter.com.

Our individual and collective histories are composed of fragments—bits of information we piece together in different ways. According to former professional athlete, multidisciplinary artist, and NOT REAL ART 2022 grant winner Kiley Ames, these fragments can be rearranged and reinterpreted to create personalized perceptions of reality.Using small, distinct brushstrokes to illustrate her philosophy on fragments, Kiley paints in an Impressionistic style that prioritizes light, color, and texture. “[Painting] is a very tactile experience, and I want people to get up close to it and see it [from] far away and look at it from the side,” says Kiley, who often invites patrons to her studio at the Beacon Arts Building in Inglewood, California. “I love for people to see my work in person […] the way I paint is incredibly difficult to see online, regardless of how great the photos are.”On today's podcast episode, host and NOT REAL ART founder Scott “Sourdough” Power sits down with Kiley to discuss the importance of authenticity, how she developed her unique style, and why she ultimately embraces duality in both work and life. Kiley also shares her thoughts on freelancing at the Annie Leibovitz Studio for the better part of a decade: “When you see someone like Annie [Leibowitz] or Irving Penn or Van Gogh, you only see the final piece or the final photograph,” she says. “You don't see all the ones that weren't chosen.” In short? Even great artists don't get it right the first time.A self-professed latecomer to the art world, Kiley embraced an expressive style after realizing that “good art” isn't necessarily photorealistic. “[Photorealistic art] is beautiful, but I also realized that it wasn't representative of who I am,” she says. “ It took me a really long time to break out of that because you get rewarded for creating something that looks like something else.” Subjective, evocative, and dreamy, Kiley's style evolved from exploration and experimentation, traits she encourages in other emerging artists. Tune into our conversation with Kiley Ames on the player below, then head over to our 2022 grant winner's exhibition to see her winning work.Key Points From This Episode:The welcoming community and support system that Kiley found at Beacon Arts Building.Challenges with networking in the art world and how Kiley has built relationships.Why it's difficult to properly appreciate her paintings in pictures or online.How Kiley found her artistic voice and developed her unique visual style.Some insight into who Kiley is and how she embraces duality.What being a professional athlete taught her about discipline and redefining success.A look at Kiley's creative process (which doesn't involve sketchbooks!)Her most recent body of work and what it represents, and what she's working on now.Kiley's take on why lawmakers are focused on drag shows and not gun control.Ways that art can facilitate less combative discussions about very serious issues.Advice for navigating the art world, staying on budget, and applying for artist grants.The impact COVID had on Kiley as an artist, and how the ocean helped her personally.Lessons and personal reflections from Kiley's experience of working with Annie Leibowitz.Words of wisdom for young artists: learn to fall in love with the process!Why artists shouldn't restrict themselves to just one...

Hosts Gavin Purcell & Kevin Pereira return to demystify the latest AI news, breakthroughs, and their practical applications. As always, our mission is to make artificial intelligence both digestible and relatable for everyone. In this week's demo, we're conducting an AI therapy session! Our AI co-host, Gash, sits down with Dr. Claude, an AI based on Anthropic's model. Their mission? To see if they can nudge Gash out of his deep-seated nihilistic state. Will they make a breakthrough? Join us for a fascinating (and, of course, semi-agressive) journey into AI self-awareness. Then, in our "Dumb Thing We Did With AI This Week" segment, we live up to our very dumb expectations. Kevin strikes a tune using Meta's new MusicGen text-to-audio software while Gavin exploits the ChatGPT plugin, Photorealistic, to transform fast food mascots into dreary corporate middle-managers.  On to THE NEWS: Runway ML has just launched Gen2 video for all! Kevin and Gavin break down how to get the most out of it and what innovative things you can create with this new tool. Mark Zuckerberg gets candid about AI on Lex Fridman's podcast, delving into the significance of the newly open-sourced models. OpenAI announces new ChatGPT models, promising even greater performance and speed. We'll unpack what these developments mean for AI technology and everyday users. Stay tuned for these stories, and much more about the world of AI, its impact, and its potential. Follow us on: Twitter: https://twitter.com/AIForHumansShow YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AIForHumansShow And share your thoughts with us via voicemail or email through our website: https://www.aiforhumans.show/

The Folger: Hey ChatGPT! Could you write a six line Shakespearean monologue in iambic pentameter about an interview with Jennifer Black, Laura Turchi, and John Ladd about the challenges and opportunities that ChatGPT presents in the English classroom? Thank you! ChatGPT: Of course, I'd be happy to write a Shakespearean monologue on that topic! Here it is: Oh, how ChatGPT may bring the bard to light, And in the English classroom, set things right. With Jennifer, Laura, John to lead the way, They'll show the world what ChatGPT can convey. For in its code, a wealth of knowledge lies, And students learn, to their great teachers' surprise. Based on that monologue, Open AI's ChatGPT tool obviously believes that it can be a positive addition to the classroom. Should you share its optimistic outlook? Our host Barbara Bogaev talks with Jennifer Black of Boise State University, Laura Turchi of Arizona State University, and John Ladd of Washington and Jefferson College about the challenges and opportunities that artificial intelligence tools offer English teachers. Check out this episode on our website to see a gallery of Shakespeare portraits "created" by Open AI's DALL-E tool, responding to prompts including "Shakespeare piloting a Shakespeare in the style of Cowboy Bebop," "Robot William Shakespeare in the style of John Singer Sargent," "Photorealistic image Shakespeare in cyberspace," and "Shakespeare sitting on a cliffside in a jungle working on a laptop." Dr. Jennifer Black is a Lecturer in English Literature at Boise State University, where she teaches a broad range of undergraduate courses in literature and humanities. Her most recent publications focus on teaching Shakespeare online, leadership and ethics in Shakespeare's plays, and flipping the college classroom. Dr. John R. Ladd is an assistant professor in Computing and Information Studies at Washington & Jefferson College. His teaching and research focuses on the use of data across a wide variety of domains, especially in cultural and humanities contexts, as well as on the histories of information and technology. He has published essays and web projects on cultural analytics and humanities data science, the history of data, and network analysis. Dr. Laura Turchi is a teacher educator specializing in English Language Arts. She co-authored Teaching Shakespeare with Purpose: A Student-Centered Approach (Bloomsbury/Arden) with Ayanna Thompson and recently completed Teaching Shakespeare with Interactive Editions (forthcoming from Cambridge University Press ). Turchi is Clinical Professor in English at Arizona State University, where she directs curriculum development for “RaceB4Race: Sustaining, Building, Innovating” at the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published February 28, 2023. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. Leonor Fernandez edits a transcript of every episode, available at folger.edu. We had technical help from Shane McKeon, Kristin Vermilya, and Voice Trax West in Studio City, California. Final mixing services provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.

As Co-founder and president of MBD Financials: the Decentralized, Photorealistic, Metaverse Business District, May Mahboob believes technology can alleviate poverty and inequality. With more businesses turning to online ventures, the idea of digital twining allows users to buy digital assets and convert them in the real world. When she spoke to BlockSolid podcast host Yael Tamar, May was an enthusiastic proponent of mixed reality technology as a blend of the virtual and the real worlds. Listen to their full conversation at this link: About May Mahboob: May is an Entrepreneur, Innovator, Visionary, and Creator. She is a strong advocate of using technology for alleviating poverty, inequality, and segregation by bringing first world resources to developing countries via digital finance such as cryptocurrency, web 3, metaverse, and blockchain technology. ______________ Explore our real estate projects: http://marketplace.solidblock.co Become a tokenization expert: https://www.solidblock.co/course Stay connected: https://solidblock.co https://www.linkedin.com/company/solidblock/ https://twitter.com/SolidBlockCo https://www.facebook.com/solidblock.co/ https://www.instagram.com/solidblockco/

Diego Di Tommaso is the Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer (COO) of OVER, the company building the first augmented reality (AR) open metaverse. With a wealth of experience ranging from consultancy and innovation management to operational excellence and internationalization, Diego has spent his career in the corporate finance, fashion, and, most recently, emerging tech space. Prior to co-founding OVER, he worked in the fashion industry for more than 10 years. In his most recent role prior to OVER, Diego served as a Senior Advisor to PwC as a fashion retail industry expert. Heralding a new dawn for the metaverse, OVER enables users to create unique geo-localized experiences that bridge the gap between our physical and digital worlds. Utilizing best-in-class, community-driven 3D mapping, OVER provides users and builders alike with the opportunity to own AR metaverse real estate, map their local areas to earn OVR tokens, and explore Web3 like never before. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/crypto-hipster-podcast/support

With the technology of AI being more and more, Google has gone ahead and released a product called DreamBooth, which takes photos of an individual, and generates completely computer rendered photos that look like the person it's trying to recreate. David Shipley, Cyber Security Expert and CEO of Beauceron Security, joined guest host, Rubina Ahmed-Haq, to explain this and how it could affect the future of deepfakes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of the Artmatcher podcast, Rachel Chamberlain speaks with Michael Goodman about her late start in art and showing her work at the upcoming “Woman's Perspective: Empowering Femininity” in February 2023.About Rachel ChamberlainKnown for both her striking portraits and contemplative large-scale abstract work, Rachel Chamberlain was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and studied fashion and illustration at the Savannah College of Art & Design. Rachel's artistic calling was evident at an early age and she credits her free-spirited style and individuality to the experience of growing up as an adopted only child.Rachel's soul-searching portraits express the artist's own search for identity and a deep connection in both human relationships and her canvas. Photorealistic faces seem to leap off the canvas, lit by a mysterious luminosity that hints at otherworldly elements and the true depth of human experience. Rather than simply painting what she sees on the outside, Rachel seeks to form a powerful connection with each of her subjects and captures a glimpse of their soul and inner beauty.Rachel's abstract works lie on another plane of existence and are infused with both a love for life and a quest for meaningful connection. Key to her artistic practice is the use of mantras and meditation which allow her to access a remarkable form of creativity onto the canvas.These large-scale works use color, form, and texture to harness dynamic energy and a soothing aesthetic that takes the viewer on a journey through their own understanding. Rather than being mere spectators, the audience is invited to consider their place in the universe guided by an aesthetic that inspires a deep contemplative response. Sparse use of gold leaf and repeated staccato markings evoke a higher plane of consciousness and are grounded in a bold color story.Rachel Chamberlain's work has been widely exhibited internationally and her loyal client base includes famous names from the political and business elite as well as several celebrity collectors. Her abstract pieces have also found a home in London at Red8 Gallery where her unique style and inspirational aesthetic has already generated much interest. Rachel lives in the foothills of Salt Lake City, Utah with her husband and four beautiful children.Recommended LinksRachel Chamberlain's websiteRachel Chamberlain's Instagram

In this put off edition of the STAB! show, mecha-procrastinator and host Jesse Jones, welcomes super on top of it gents, Ben Rice, Benton Harshaw & Daniel Humbarger to share with YOU their three different FEARs, their bootleg knockoffs of Spider-Man, Lucky Charms, & Seinfeld, recipes for that overachiever who threw off the curve for … Continue reading »

We present Imagen, a text-to-image diffusion model with an unprecedented degree of photorealism and a deep level of language understanding. Imagen builds on the power of large transformer language models in understanding text and hinges on the strength of diffusion models in high-fidelity image generation. Our key discovery is that generic large language models (e.g. T5), pretrained on text-only corpora, are surprisingly effective at encoding text for image synthesis: increasing the size of the language model in Imagen boosts both sample fidelity and image-text alignment much more than increasing the size of the image diffusion model. 2022: Chitwan Saharia, William Chan, Saurabh Saxena, Lala Li, Jay Whang, Emily L. Denton, Seyed Kamyar Seyed Ghasemipour, Burcu Karagol Ayan, S. S. Mahdavi, Raphael Gontijo Lopes, Tim Salimans, Jonathan Ho, D. Fleet, Mohammad Norouzi Ranked #1 on Text-to-Image Generation on COCO (using extra training data) https://arxiv.org/pdf/2205.11487v1.pdf

Shep Ogden, CEO and Co-founder, Offbeat Media Group (Atlanta, GA) Shep Ogden is CEO and Co-founder of Offbeat Media Group, an agency that helps “some of the biggest brands in the world figure out how to use TikTok, Web3, and meme marketing to reach Gen Z customers. Originally, the college friends who started the agency owned and operated an Instagram account, Humor, which drew four million followers . . . and a lot of interest from brands that wanted to partner with the account. The agency moved from working with memes to working with influencers, and from there, to developing virtual influencers. Today, the agency's clients are typically the 10% of businesses that “are constantly looking for that new thing.” When the partners realized the Humor account did not have an associated “face,” they decided to build one virtually. For the past few years, Offbeat has been working to establish “virtual influencers” to serve as identities behind “faceless” accounts. Virtual influencer development is what the agency is best known for today “and its clients are typically the 10% of businesses that “are constantly looking for that new thing.”  Shep says that today's photorealistic virtual influencers “don't look 100% real yet” and the technology to perfect them is extremely expensive. The other end of the spectrum, cartoony caricatures, does not work as well as stylized animated characters that “are not meant to trick you,” but to serve as characters “to tell a story” using “humanized responses and emotions.” The first of seven stylized virtual influencers the agency is creating for Nexus, named “Zero,” launched on Twitter in February and has drawn the interest of major investors. The agency's content studio creates a constant stream of content on the internet (mostly on places like TikTok and Snapchat) with close to a dozen shows that reach hundreds of millions of people monthly. By building virtual influencers and developing an NFT (nonfungible token) project for themselves, then iterating, testing, and innovating to improve their “product,” the agency demonstrates that it “gets” the new technology. The shows are monetized when platform partners direct ads their known audiences and share the revenues with Offbeat. The agency plans to sell NFTs to crowdsource virtual influencers' story development, help “build community,” and further monetize the agency's work. Shep talked about the intersection of the virtual influencer industry, Web3, digital ownership, and NFTs at the 2022 South by Southwest Conference. After his presentation, “The Future of Influence Doesn't Involve Humans,” he brought Nexus's Zero up on stage, on screen, to converse, unscripted, with entrepreneur Mark Cuban. Shep says the goals for his presentation were to: introduce the virtual influencer industry, establish Web3 for the audience, discuss how these two intersect, explain the agency's work and the thought behind the Nexus universe growing around Zero, and show the stuff in action. Shep can be found on LinkedIn as Shep Ogden. Offbeat Media Group is also on LinkedIn. The Offbeat-owned website, VirtualHumans.org, serves as the industry-leading website on virtual influencers. For those interested in the development of Zero, follow @ZeroFromNexus on Twitter.  Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm joined today live at South by Southwest, interactive, by Shep Ogden, CEO and Co-founder of Offbeat Media Group based in Atlanta, Georgia. Welcome to the podcast, Shep. SHEP: Awesome, Rob. Thanks so much for having me. I'm having a blast. ROB: It's good to have you here. It's always fun to have these people we know in Atlanta – we know each other, but we're in Austin and getting together to talk. It's all well, good, and fun, but why don't you start off by telling us about Offbeat Media Group and what is your superpower? What's your calling card? SHEP: Our superpower has changed over the last few years. It's been a really fun experience. I'd like to back up and give you the quick origin story. We started this business while we were in college. We owned and operated an account called Humor on Instagram with about four million followers. It was a really large meme and viral community, basically. It was something that we started for fun and then it turned into something that brands really wanted to partner with us on. The next thing you know, we're helping some of the biggest brands in the world figure out how to reach Gen Z and how to do meme marketing and how to tap into an account like Humor, but also hundreds of others and then thousands of others. That led to us working with a ton of influencers, moving from just meme accounts to influencers, which then led to this whole new crazy idea, which I think is our superpower, of virtual influencers – taking this concept of an account like Humor that has millions of followers but doesn't have a face attached to it and thinking about that, but doing it with a virtual face. Building an account, building a personality, building something that someone wants to follow, but giving an identity behind it – that's the idea of a virtual influencer, and we've been doing that for the last few years. It's definitely what we're known for most now. ROB: It might sound a little bit out there to the audience; is this an influencer who is obviously not real? Or do they appear real? How does that happen? SHEP: That's a great question. Sometimes it's both. There's photorealistic virtual influencers that look pretty real. They don't look 100% real yet. There are ways to make it look 100% real, but it's very, very expensive. What we like to do, and what we've seen work much, much better with the audience across the board is more of a stylized animated character. We recently launched Zero for Nexus on Twitter, who you saw, I know. He's a stylized character. While he has very humanlike responses and emotions, and when he talks to people you get that human feeling from him, you also know instantly that he's not meant to be real. He's not meant to trick you. He's just here as a character to tell a story. I think that's what works really well in this space. ROB: And it sort of helps you get past the uncanny valley problem when they look stylized versus real. How do you go about thinking about who this character is, though? I suppose every influencer to an extent has to decide who their persona is, but you're writing a script from nothing. Or is it rooted in something real? SHEP: That's a great question. With Zero, it's not rooted really in anything real, but the way we counteract that and think about that is we're including the community. A real influencer has a real backstory and has a real life, and you can't really change their backstory, change their life. They are who they are. But with a virtual influencer, we're writing lore for Zero. Who is Zero? What's his background? But we're including the community that follows him now. The thousands of people following him and engaging with his content are helping us make this decision. We can do a top-level, “Hey, is it A, B, or C? What do you like better?” and then someone on our team will go deep into that concept and bring it to life when our community says, “We really like this direction.” We crowdsource it. We crowdsource the storytelling of these type of characters, which I think also gives the fans more satisfaction seeing them brought to life. ROB: You mentioned hundreds and thousands of these accounts before on more of the Humor and accounts like that, the non-influencer side. How many influencers are you running? How many do you want to run? SHEP: Virtual influencers? ROB: Yep. SHEP: Right now, we're running one. We launched in February, Zero. We did a lot of tests over the last few years of different types, like we talked about photorealistic, we talked about some more cartoony, but stylized is what we landed on. We built some really cool tech over the last 12 months that allows us to power these influencers in real time where you could have a conversation with them on video, and there's no animator needed. It's all happening from our studio in Atlanta. So, we have Zero from Nexus and that's our main one right now. Zero is part of the Nexus universe. Our approach towards an entertainment brand. We plan on fully decentralizing. I mentioned our community, community involvement, community governance, and helping us make decisions. We actually do plan on giving NFTs to the community, one day possibly a token where people can have ownership as well as governance of this overarching community. Over the next 18 months in this entertainment brand, we plan on launching six more. So, there'll be seven different virtual influencers or virtual creators within it that are engaging with each other, interacting with each other, and then telling a story is the biggest thing. ROB: When you talk about a universe like this, you talk about an entertainment brand, what would be a parallel of something that's already established that people might think about? Is this like a Fortnite ecosystem? Is this like a Roblox? What level does that brand rise to? Or is it like a sub-brand within Disney and you might have multiple of these universes? SHEP: That. That's spot on, that last one. The way we look at it is Offbeat Media Group as a company, we do have different arms for our business. We talked a bit about helping brands figure out TikTok and Web3 and memes. That's our agency. We have a content studio that we haven't talked a ton about, but we create a ton of content across the internet. We have nearly a dozen shows across the internet that reach hundreds of millions of people every month. But with the Nexus universe, we built really cool tech to power that. That's our first jump into building out this entertainment brand. We think about that as something like the Marvel Universe. That would be someone we really look up to. We can tell a story for decades to come and we can include the audience in helping us make some of the bigger decisions within that story. But what's really unique about it is because we have this tech that allows people to interact with our characters in real time on a Zoom call or on Twitch, they can do that with these characters. If you think about Marvel Universe and Captain America or Thor or someone like that, you're not going to get content from Thor, but once every two years, once they release a movie. He's not on social media. He's not on Twitch. You can't hop on a podcast with him. Maybe the actor, but not actually Thor, the character, because that would cost a ton of money for Marvel Universe to have Thor always on. So that's our concept. We can tell the story, a cinematic story, just as you would see with something like that, but you can also get day-to-day interaction with our characters. ROB: You mentioned the agency off to the side; I know a lot of your vision is pulling forward on what you're doing with this universe, but I think it might be easy for someone listening to actually underestimate that you have a substantive business. You've built a real deal agency and business underneath all of this. Someone might wonder, you're building this science experiment; how do you pay the bills? What's the day-to-day of what makes things operate well that allows you to also invest in the future? SHEP: That's a great question. You're spot on. Our agency does really well. It's growing. We have an awesome general manager, Michael Heaven, who has really taken charge and leadership of it. He came from one of the fastest-growing agencies of the last decade, was employee #7 at Social Chain, went to about 700, and then left and came and joined us after opening quite a few offices for them. The way we look at it is – I'll say first off, I'm in one of the few roles where being a 26-year-old CEO is a positive. People come to us and say, “Yeah, this guy probably gets it. He probably understands memes. He probably understands TikTok and is pretty much a pro.” Now, over the last couple years, we've been doing virtual influencers and we've been looking at NFTs and whatnot. Same thing there. People are like, “Okay, they probably get it. They're a pretty young and innovative team.” But then we're also showcasing to people that we do get it. We're building virtual influencers for ourselves. We're building an NFT project for ourselves. We're creating content nonstop on the internet, like I mentioned earlier, with the content studio. Both of those fuel interest in what we're doing. We're not your typical agency that just does services for others; we're iterating, we're testing, we're innovating every single day, like “How do we do this better for ourselves?” Then once we build that playbook for ourselves, we have a team that's ready to take that playbook and do it for brands. So that's why we have both of these. In the day-to-day, we're innovating on content that we can do internally. Once we find something's working, we ship it over to the agency and we're like, “Hey, no one else is doing this yet, but we just had it work really, really well for us. Let's roll this out.” ROB: How much of the media that you produce ends up being something that you can integrate a client/a brand into versus how much of it is a proof of capability that serves as marketing? Do you bring the brands into some of these, your Humor channels, and some of that? Or is it all “We saw that you could do this, now please do this for us but under our umbrella”? SHEP: It depends on the asset. With Humor, on Instagram, the one with about four million followers, we integrate brands into that all the time. We create memes, we partner with comedians, we partner with viral influencers, and we can take their branded content or we can make a branded meme and integrate it into this community really, really easily. With the shows – I mentioned we have about a dozen shows – most of those are on places like TikTok and Snapchat. We don't integrate brands into those. The way that works is we are partnered with the platform, so we're making money from programmatic advertising. When someone's watching our show, Snapchat knows the audience watching the show. They're running ads, and then we have a rev share deal with them. So, we don't have to go sell ads for that stuff. We're not really trying to turn into a production company for brands. Most of the stuff we're producing is either lightweight or partnered with an influencer. And then on the virtual influencer front, first and foremost, we're building a community. We expect that community to be a part of what we're doing. We plan on selling them NFTs. We plan on giving them governance of what we're building. We can monetize it through content. But with Zero and the virtual influencers, that is a perfect branded integration play, too. We've done a great job with his lore, where he's got a portal in his universe that he can send things through one day, but things can already be sent to him. For example, Samsung sent him their new most recent phone, and it's now his new most favorite thing. He's constantly hopping on a selfie video, and it's always with a Samsung. That's a way that we split how we think about branded versus not. ROB: How did they find you? Or how did you find them? This is an experiment for a brand. SHEP: Yeah. I was talking to somebody yesterday and they talked about how brands are typically in a 70%, 20%, 10% kind of mindset where that 10% is the ones that are constantly looking for that new thing. We usually work with those 10%. We own and operate a website called VirtualHumans.org. It is the industry-leading website about all things virtual influencers. There's nothing else out there like it. Three years ago, two and a half years ago, when we got really excited about this space, we saw that everyone was writing about it from a journalist standpoint, but there was nowhere to actually learn about the industry. There was always the same one, two, three virtual influencers mentioned, yet here we are finding 50, finding 60. It's like, why can't I find anywhere to actually learn about this industry? How are the players in it? What are they doing? How are they doing it? So, we build that website for the industry, and that has connected us with major investors, major brands, major partners, every team in the space. Anyone interested in the space typically comes to us, inbound, wanting to network. ROB: There's a recurring theme here. We see you continue to build a platform that proves what you're able to do, that people want to be a part of, whether that's on some of the meme accounts, whether that's on Virtual Humans, now with Zero. Where did that disposition towards building content platforms come from? You guys started when you were in school. Were you in film? Were you in some sort of creative endeavor? Was it just a natural, organic “this is where social is now” and who you are demographically? SHEP: I think it was fun for all of us. Bailey, Christopher, and myself are the main three day-to-day partners. We also have Kevin Planovosky, who's an advisor of ours and an early partner. All of us went to the University of Georgia. But specifically, Bailey, Christopher, and I all had our own Instagram accounts that weren't ourselves. Christopher ran a social media app for a while that had hundreds of thousands of users, and then when that ended up not working out, he pivoted to social media accounts and had tens of thousands of followers. I had this idea that you could – I owned a lot of states on Instagram, like Alabama, West Virginia, Iowa, South Carolina, and then cities and some countries, even. People just started following them, and it gave me authority because I owned the state username. It was almost as if I was the state. So, it gave me a lot of authority. I just thought it was really cool and I was learning really quickly how to gain tens and then hundreds of thousands of followers, and then met Bailey, who was doing the same thing. He was making memes. He was just posting memes and making memes. We were like, man, we think we could make money doing this, like real money. That's when we all partnered up with some experiments, and the next you know, it actually turned into a real business. Something that started as something cool to us. ROB: It's lightning in a bottle with some people. Kevin's a former guest on the podcast as well. Recorded that one live and in person at the Vert Office. That was pretty fun. Did any or all of you come from any entrepreneurial background? Was there a seed planted early for you? SHEP: Yeah, great question. Bailey has such a unique story. I wish he was here to tell it. Really, his origin story was he wanted to get a truck when he was 16 and he wanted a nice one, and his parents told him they'd pay for half of it. But if he wanted a nice one, he was going to have to figure out how to make the other half. He was 14-15 years old with no real money, and he started flipping cards or flipping sunglasses or something on eBay, and then heard about this guy in high school making real money, thousands of dollars, with Twitter accounts. So, he went and used all of his money from selling sunglasses and flipping other items to buy a couple really big Twitter accounts and start monetizing that. Next thing you know – he didn't realize he was becoming an entrepreneur, but he did. It just snowballed from when he was 14 years old up to moving into memes and all across the board. So, he had a really cool story. I think Christopher found himself in a somewhat similar boat, really just wanting to build something special. And then my background is my family was a family of small-town entrepreneurs. My dad is probably the biggest hustler I know. I grew up and we owned small rentals, a car wash, a little shop, all the kinds of things like that in a small town of 10,000 people. I loved talking about business with him, and I'm 7-8 years old. I'm like, “How'd work go today?” and I'm asking him all about it. I think that set my foundation really, really strong. I knew I didn't have to go and work for The Man. That's how I learned it from my dad. He gave me a story where he went and worked for a year or two at a factory, basically, and his dad, who was also an entrepreneur, told him, “You're wasting your time.” Which I don't think is necessarily a fair characterization, but he left and he went and started his own business and he was much better off for that. So that really inspired me. I always knew that I could do that as well, like it was a possibility. I got to see that firsthand as a possibility. And then I studied entrepreneurship nonstop for most of my high school and college career and then jumped in. ROB: It's three very different paths, and of course, Bailey's reminds me – quite often, the entrepreneurs are the folks that were flipping candy or sunglasses or you name it in high school, and they end up starting something later. I would be remiss if we didn't talk about the session that you've been here at SXSW to present. Did it yesterday, had a special guest up on stage with you. The session was “The Future of Influence Doesn't Involve Humans.” What should people who weren't there know about it? SHEP: I'll say first off, I think we chose a little clickbait-y title to get people in there. Yes, while we were showing a virtual human, which technically isn't a real human, there was a massive team working on that of all humans. So yeah, we had Mark Cuban join us. It was a really great experience. We got to really talk about the virtual influencer industry, talk about this new world of Web3 and digital ownership and NFTs and how this stuff's going to intersect and tie into virtual influencers and how we think about using that ideology. Web3 ideology is a tool to let this community actually have ownership and governance of the virtual influencers we're building. And then after we explained what this stuff was – we gave a quick definition of a virtual influencer, but it is a first-person identity built on the internet for the sake of influence. Could be for a friend, could be for yourself, could be an artist, whatever it is, but it is a first-person computer-generated character that thinks and acts as if they're their own person. That's a virtual influencer. Once we got through that, we've got to actually bring Zero up on stage, onscreen, and have him start talking to Mark Cuban and talking to us and engaging with the audience. That was I think one of the coolest experiences we've had as a company so far because so much of what we've been working on, like this idea that you can build an influencer that can engage with the world, was shown yesterday. I think the most unique thing about it was that nothing was pre-scripted. For anyone listening, typically to do what we did yesterday, to have a fully animated character engaging with someone and actually have it look real, you have a team of animators that are doing it in postproduction. They're keyframe animating this stuff. But all of our stuff, all the tools that we've built, do all of it in real time. So yes, we have someone to motion capture, but that output looks crystal clear. ROB: Yeah, it was crisp. It worked. The technology worked. I was hoping you didn't have to reboot Zero at any point. But I think had some doubts when you started doing the session, and when you're interacting over Zoom with this character. I think people still felt like it might have been scripted, but you shared with me you didn't even know what he was going to say and how he was going to introduce himself. Little worrisome even there, little fake robot voice just to creep everybody out. SHEP: Yeah, he came in – Zero's on Twitter as @ZeroFromNexus and everyone keeps calling him an AI. So sometimes when he joins in on a Zoom, he loves messing with everyone and pretending to be a robot, and then he says, “I'm just kidding!” and he starts talking to you like a normal person. I think the crowd loved that. But yeah, we planned a lot of the conversation prior that we'd be having with Mark and talking about the industry, and then we planned to have Zero give us a tour of his bunker, but that was all free-flowing conversation. There was nothing scripted. I think even Mark was like, “How much of this is preplanned?” It's like, zero. He starts asking Zero questions, and Zero's just responding off the cuff. He just had all of it off the top of his head. ROB: It sounds a little bit like improv, really. You know the beats maybe that you might go through in a given skit. You might've talked some topics, you might've done some practice, but you didn't practice what you were going to say; you just know the plot points you're going to follow. SHEP: Exactly. The way we typically plan conversations like that – if we're giving a presentation, that's one thing; we'll know almost to a ‘T' what we're going to say. Christopher, who was part of the SXSW pitch yesterday for us, knew exactly what he was going to say. For something like this, we had high-level goals. We had talking points under each goal, but goal #1, establish the virtual influencer industry to the audience. Goal #2, establish Web3 to the audience. And then goal #3, start telling them how these two intersect; goal #4, start talking about how we're doing that and how we think about it with the Nexus universe we're building with Zero. And then goal #5, actually show the stuff in action. So, we had high-level, “Cool, we've got an hour; we're going to show this stuff.” Mark Cuban is an investor of ours, and he has a really impressive knowledge of exactly what we're doing, so he was able to go off and riff on it with this as well. ROB: Yeah, he probably gives ideas from the stage sometimes where someone's taking a note and being like, “Let's put that in the mix too.” SHEP: Definitely. ROB: While this entire technical demo was going on – we're trying to picture what's going on behind the scenes – you have a whole studio set up in Atlanta that you've alluded to. I'm trying to draw metaphors. Actually, is there a way people can see the session yesterday or something like it, some reasonable recording of something like that to get a taste? Where can they go see something like that to start to understand what the experience is like? SHEP: We're going to be on Twitch soon with Zero from Nexus. But right now, Twitter. If you look up @ZeroFromNexus, spelled how it sounds –  ROB: With a ‘Z,' not with an ‘X' if you're feeling strange or fancy. SHEP: Right. You can see all of his content that he posts right now. And all of his stuff is done in real time. Because it's posted on Twitter, we do have an editor that can cut pieces off and whatnot, but the actual content production takes as long as that clip takes. We're able to move cameras around in real time. We click a button, the camera's in a different spot. We're able to teleport him around. We're able to move him all around the bunker. He lives in a bunker. [laughs] ROB: For now. SHEP: Yeah, for now. But we're able to do all of that in real time. I think his Twitter is probably the best case to see that right now. ROB: Who all is involved today? Is there a voice actor? Is there a body actor? Are they the same person? Virtual cameraman? Is somebody pushing magic buttons for teleporting? Who's involved in making a Zero moment right now? SHEP: There's a voice actor that's also the motion capture artist. And then we have our head of content, who's also helping go deep in the content we're producing. We have our tech director, which is typically the one processing those buttons like, “Cool, we're about to teleport, we're about to get a new camera scene.” So yeah, it's a pretty lean team of about three fully focused on character, and then we have a couple more in the studio, typically, that are supporting and working on things. To have one of these characters up and running, though, it takes two to three people. ROB: It's amazingly in real time. I could almost picture different places – I imagine a lot of people would want to use this – you could imagine having an Instagram live with Gollum from Lord of the Rings. You could do that, right? Maybe not on the rendering technology right now; maybe that level of realism isn't quite real time. But it's within reach. You can get there from here. SHEP: Yeah, we could. Right now, even. It all comes down to – the system we've built can render at that high level. Photorealistic humans isn't there, but something like a very high-end character rendered in real time, absolutely. You break that uncanniness because it's not a human. Once it's a human, that stuff gets hard. But yeah, that's spot on. Gollum we could bring to life. Instagram Live is kind of complicated because you have to do it from a phone, but you could bring it alive on Twitch. You bring it alive on anything from a computer that can do live. We could have a very high-end character engaging and talking to you. Maybe giving his backstory or going deeper into the lore of Lord of the Rings, in the Gollum example. Going deeper into that lore and almost giving you his personal experience. That's definitely possible with this technology. ROB: That's fascinating. I do want to see it, but I also want to pull forward to where you're thinking some of this stuff goes in terms of the Web3 technology. I think some of it was alluded to during the session yesterday, this idea of even potentially establishing a DAO, these digital autonomous organizations, around a character or even parts of the universe governance to make decisions. How wide of decisions do you think you'll let people make for these characters and this universe? SHEP: That's a really interesting question. We think about this a lot, because there's been nothing out there long enough to really see what the right answer is. The way we're thinking about it is at Offbeat, we're the creative lead. We went down the rabbit hole of like “What if we gave full control to the community out the gate?”, but there's a lot of examples where that hasn't necessarily been the best thing for the long term of the IP. Lots of times the community will do what's coolest or funniest or whatever it is right now, today, and then they might saturate the brand or make the wrong decision for the brand in the long term. So, the way we view it is we have a really, really creative team, and we can come up with concepts before we completely flesh them out and build them out. Then we can include the audience on helping us make decisions. This is where it starts. We want the audience to make sure that they're included in all the decisions we're making about the universe we're building. They'll have to own an NFT for the community to actually have that governance and help us make those decisions. But in the future, it could move to be full DAO-driven, where maybe we have a creative council at the top of the DAO that almost has a final say-so, but everyone on that council is voted for by the DAO and then they're making all the decisions, where maybe 51% can vote and say “Okay, great, this is Zero's new background. This is the content we're producing this month. This is the next character we're launching. This is what they look like.” Right now, it's going to be very – what's that “Bandersnatch” off of Netflix? It was like “choose your own adventure.” ROB: Yeah, that was a Black Mirror offshoot. SHEP: Yeah. I don't like referring to us as Black Mirror, now that I think about it. [laughs] But it is very “choose your own adventure” right now. They're part of the adventure we're building. But in the future, it might be “build your own adventure from scratch.” Like, “Here, community, what do you want from scratch?” It's definitely possible. ROB: Right. There's different variations. There's an idea where you could have the contract govern what kind of decisions can be made and all sorts of different directions like that. Interestingly, I think there's a long-term alignment. I guess an absolutist might say, “Give us full control,” but there's an alignment where, I assume, when you're thinking about these tokens, they're going to be re-sellable. You're going to get a slice of every transaction when it's resold. So your interest is still to align to an audience that wants to own and increase the value. SHEP: Yeah, spot on. The one thing I'll say is a lot of people that own these might not be IP experts. I have been chatting with a lot of IP experts that are from the world of Disney, from the world of Marvel, from the world of Star Wars, that helped build these brands and manage this decade-long or multi-decade-long IP and how they think about expanding and monetizing it. They're worried about some of these brands. I own a Mutant Ape from the Bored Ape Yacht Club, which is a big NFT community. We were talking about that because every single person that owns a Mutant or a Bored Ape owns the full IP rights to do whatever they want with it. So now there are so many companies and so many individuals creating content with that IP. It's just going to be really interesting over the next seven years. Does that saturate it? Does it keep that pristine, exclusive feel if everyone's creating content around it with totally different narratives that have nothing to do with each other? Or does it just become almost like an avatar? Which is still cool and still valuable, but it might not become an entertainment brand. Pirates of the Caribbean is a great example. It was Disney's biggest hit for about a decade. Now it's nothing. They're not producing anything new. It was their biggest hit and every couple of the years, new Pirates of the Caribbean something, over and over and over and over, and it got saturated really quickly. That's what we're really cautious of. As we think about building a lot of these characters with similar style for our universe, we want to include the community in it, but if everyone could do exactly what we were doing, then it would be everywhere and it might be too saturated and people would find it less cool. ROB: Do you see a case to be able to turn an Ape into a model in the Nexus universe? Do you see that possibility of “Verify your NFT, we'll spin up a model, you dial the knobs on how it moves, how it talks”? SHEP: Probably not for the Nexus universe, but the tech's there. We might bring a Bored Ape into the Nexus universe that's interacting, but I don't think it'll be just for anyone to join us. We're looking at building out our own avatars for the Nexus universe that have our own aesthetic. So not only do you own an NFT that helps give you governance, but then also you're following these characters like Zero, and you're engaging with these characters, and now we're saying, “Hey, here's an avatar that has similar aesthetics that you can own and control.” We could include them in our overarching lore, or in their day-to-day, they could use this as their own avatar, their own V-tuber. They could join in a Zoom call and instead of being themselves, they're their avatar. That's what we're looking at. ROB: Very interesting. Definitely plenty to watch in this area. Shep, when people want to keep an eye on what you all are doing, obviously they could follow thousands of Instagram accounts, but where should they go for the center of gravity – for Offbeat, maybe for Virtual Humans? Where are the coordinates? SHEP: I'll say three areas. And like you said, it seems to change, but add myself on LinkedIn, Shep Ogden. I post a lot about what we're doing on LinkedIn. Or Offbeat's LinkedIn is another good source that really talks about it. VirtualHumans.org is not necessarily always about us; it's actually usually not about us, but it's about the industry as a whole. So, people really curious about the industry should be on the news later, they should be following the website. Third, if you're really curious about how we're bringing Zero to life, @ZeroFromNexus on Twitter is definitely the place to be.  ROB: Fantastic and fascinating. Thank you for narrating us through the intersection of the future, but grounded in stuff that's valuable right now. I think that's a really fascinating place to live in this Web3 world where some stuff feels kind of out there, and you're bringing it to reality and making a real business of it. Congratulations on everything. We'll keep an eye on it. SHEP: Thanks so much, Rob. ROB: Enjoy. Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

In all of its forms, whether Music, Painting, Literature, Architecture, Cinema, or Theater, all forms of art are essential to our experience as human beings. On this episode of The Bunker, we'll share how we can amplify our natural human desire of connecting, by exploring the uniqueness and exceptional achievements of artists, such as Alex Ross, and his incomparable photorealistic comic book art; Art that added rocket fuel to the overall interest in comic books a few decades ago, and which in a lot of ways, led to comic book movies becoming the financial foundation of the entertainment industry the past decade. I hope you'll enjoy.

Two episodes in one months? You lucky, lucky people! You're even more lucky because this episode has no singing in it. Yes, I know it's only because we missed January by a day. Shush. In Episode 57 of Your Least Favourite Video Game Podcast, deKay, Toby, Luffer and Tim expel lexiconic blather from their phizogial orifii on the subjects of, but not limited to, the closure of the 3DS and Wii U digital stores, people not buying PS4 versions of games that have free upgrades to PS5 versions when that's cheaper than buying the PS5 version, Fun NFT Discussion, Sony's PSVR2 announcement, the recent Nintendo Direct, and some Steam Deck stuff. And! Some! Games!

#glide #openai #diffusion Diffusion models learn to iteratively reverse a noising process that is applied repeatedly during training. The result can be used for conditional generation as well as various other tasks such as inpainting. OpenAI's GLIDE builds on recent advances in diffusion models and combines text-conditional diffusion with classifier-free guidance and upsampling to achieve unprecedented quality in text-to-image samples. Try it yourself: https://huggingface.co/spaces/valhall... OUTLINE: 0:00 - Intro & Overview 6:10 - What is a Diffusion Model? 18:20 - Conditional Generation and Guided Diffusion 31:30 - Architecture Recap 34:05 - Training & Result metrics 36:55 - Failure cases & my own results 39:45 - Safety considerations Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.10741 Code & Model: https://github.com/openai/glide-text2im More diffusion papers: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.11239.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2102.09672.pdf Abstract: Diffusion models have recently been shown to generate high-quality synthetic images, especially when paired with a guidance technique to trade off diversity for fidelity. We explore diffusion models for the problem of text-conditional image synthesis and compare two different guidance strategies: CLIP guidance and classifier-free guidance. We find that the latter is preferred by human evaluators for both photorealism and caption similarity, and often produces photorealistic samples. Samples from a 3.5 billion parameter text-conditional diffusion model using classifier-free guidance are favored by human evaluators to those from DALL-E, even when the latter uses expensive CLIP reranking. Additionally, we find that our models can be fine-tuned to perform image inpainting, enabling powerful text-driven image editing. We train a smaller model on a filtered dataset and release the code and weights at this https URL. Authors: Alex Nichol, Prafulla Dhariwal, Aditya Ramesh, Pranav Shyam, Pamela Mishkin, Bob McGrew, Ilya Sutskever, Mark Chen Links: TabNine Code Completion (Referral): http://bit.ly/tabnine-yannick YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/yannickilcher Twitter: https://twitter.com/ykilcher Discord: https://discord.gg/4H8xxDF BitChute: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/yann... LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ykilcher BiliBili: https://space.bilibili.com/2017636191 If you want to support me, the best thing to do is to share out the content :) If you want to support me financially (completely optional and voluntary, but a lot of people have asked for this): SubscribeStar: https://www.subscribestar.com/yannick... Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/yannickilcher Bitcoin (BTC): bc1q49lsw3q325tr58ygf8sudx2dqfguclvngvy2cq Ethereum (ETH): 0x7ad3513E3B8f66799f507Aa7874b1B0eBC7F85e2 Litecoin (LTC): LQW2TRyKYetVC8WjFkhpPhtpbDM4Vw7r9m Monero (XMR): 4ACL8AGrEo5hAir8A9CeVrW8pEauWvnp1WnSDZxW7tziCDLhZAGsgzhRQABDnFy8yuM9fWJDviJPHKRjV4FWt19CJZN9D4n

Marshall Harris is a transmedia artist working across a myriad of disciplines but he is most known for his large photorealistic graphite on Mylar drawings that illustrate life in extraordinary detail. - Watch the video episode, check out Marshall's work, and connect with Nathan at: https://rabbit.is/17. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/2052/message

Sharon Huntley Land I have been a successful working artist for over 20 years.  I use acrylic paint to bring nature into our homes and our lives.  I delight in taking small delicate leaves, petals of flowers, droplets of water - things we don't usually notice - and making them inescapable and brilliant. ​I paint in a style called 'photorealism.'  In other words, my paintings end up looking like the photo that I use as my source image.  So much so that they are often mistaken for photographs.  However, my paintings always have subtle differences than the source image.  I like to think I bring a level of vitality to each painting and bring the image to life to some degree.  At least that's my hope!  I also feel that there is something in the translation from eye to hand that is my own emotions and communications of how I am feeling that gets brought into each piece.  ​I am a mostly self-taught artist.  I completed a Minor in Studio Art way back in college, but that only included one painting class.  The rest is all just me, challenging myself, and painting exactly what I want to bring to the world. website: https://www.huntleyland.com/fine-art email: sharon@huntleyland.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HuntleylandDesigns Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artsymomma369/   ***Head on over to Creatrix Compass and explore our many offerings from free inspiration to get your creative juices flowing to creativity classes to creativity coaching and life coaching for creatives.  It can all be found at: https://www.creatrixcompass.com Your donation helps us continue to spread creativity throughout the land.  Thank you! https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=2PM3V82XDS7GA 

When a new 3d artist joined my academy or my Facebook group they always ask me the same question as I did back then in 2008, “Sir how to create a Photorealistic rendering” then “Sir can I have your render settings, sir?” or “ what are your computer specs, sir?”. These questions are fine but do not expect people will reply to you. Trust me people will ignore this, and at the time I joined the biggest Indonesia Arch Viz forum, all I got were only 3 answers. Check this episode to figure it out.

Our latest episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news! This week: Google Plans to Double AI Ethics Research Staff Grand Theft Auto Looks Frighteningly Photorealistic With This Machine Learning Technique The Pentagon Inches Toward Letting AI Control Weapons Tesla privately admits Elon Musk has been exaggerating about ‘full self-driving’     Tesla in fatal California crash may have been in autopilot mode, officials say     DMV probing whether Tesla violates state regulations with self-driving claims Find this and more in our text version of this news roundup:  https://lastweekin.ai/p/116 Music: Deliberate Thought, Inspired by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Ezequiel Gonzalez is a photorealistic painter currently living in Mexico and curating shows in Southern California. He teaches art classes and collaborates with current and former students, maintaining a constant dialogue between artistic peers.

In today's episode, we go over the release of Cyberpunk and its issues and talk about the Game Award show and how a lot of good games have been robbed, plus talks of Take-Two interactive using photorealistic graphics in future games. MERCH: Make sure to stay safe by copping a "1v1Podcast" Mask, YES we got some Merch up on our store. T-shirts, Stickers, Coffee Mugs, and more will be coming Soon. https://teespring.com/stores/the1v1podcast-store --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/the1v1podcast/support

Justice Department Sues Monopolist Google For Violating Antitrust Laws https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-monopolist-google-violating-antitrust-laws https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/oct/20/us-justice-department-antitrust-lawsuit-against-google Курьеры Delivery Club вышли к офису Mail.ru Group с требованием отменить систему штрафов — сервис обещал их пересмотреть https://vc.ru/food/172205-kurery-delivery-club-vyshli-k-ofisu-mail-ru-group-s-trebovaniem-otmenit-sistemu-shtrafov-servis-obeshchal-ih-peresmotret https://vc.ru/food/140030-profsoyuz-kurer-prizval-dostavshchikov-delivery-club-priostanovit-rabotu-i-vyyti-na-zabastovku-k-ofisu-mail-ru-group Сопредседатель профсоюза «Курьер» заявил, что после задержания его избили неизвестные в штатском https://ovdinfo.org/express-news/2020/11/03/sopredsedatel-profsoyuza-kurer-zayavil-chto-posle-zaderzhaniya-ego-izbili Российские IT-компании спешат встать на госучет ради льгот: это способ повысить прибыль компании или сбалансировать издержки в кризисное время? Поможет ли стартапам или это распил для крупных игроков? https://thebell.io/rossijskie-it-kompanii-speshat-vstat-na-gosuchet-radi-lgot Законодательные Тенденции в россии Много касательно ИТ : изменения законодательства вступившие в силу в ноябре https://pravo.ru/story/227011/?desc_tv_2= С 1 ноября в России начинает действовать закон о введении экспериментальных правовых режимов для развития цифровых инноваций Поправки в налоговый кодекс https://www.interfax.ru/russia/736653 Генерация музыки при помощи ИИ https://esquire.ru/relaxation/218043-grayms-vypustila-beskonechnuyu-cifrovuyu-kolybelnuyu-dlya-svoego-syna-x-a-xii-v-kollaboracii-s-rossiyanami-iz-prilozheniya-endel/#part1 AI killed video stars: Photorealistic avatars for video-conferencing apps. Democratized. alievk/avatarify: Avatars for Zoom, Skype and other video-conferencing apps. "Deep Fake Dangers (Video Killed the Radio Star)" for Internet of Things (ECE:5550) "Deep Fake Dangers (Video Killed the Radio Star)" for Internet of Things (ECE:5550) Old version (1979): Radio -> Video (MTV) The Buggles - Video Killed The Radio Star (Official Music Video) Flash, (1999): Video -> Internet Regurge Episode 1: Internet Killed the Video Star Deep fake (2019): Internet -> AI era Deep fake kill Internet stars (from ECE:5550): "Deep Fake Dangers (Video Killed the Radio Star)" for Internet of Things (ECE:5550) New Face Swapping AI Creates Amazing DeepFakes (2019) Stalin and Trotsky version (nice): People afraid of AI because now most of population is not needed anymore. People afraid of “golden billiard” conspiracy Playing piano by Kurt Wonnegut as model for modern society? Are fears have substance? Deep fakes, virtual celebrities and influencers, Michael Jackson afterlife New movie trailer - comedy about AI threading to destroy humanity Data and Lore (awesome) https://youtu.be/R9f7WD0gKPo Interview with GPT-3: https://youtu.be/PqbB07n_uQ4 Why Donald Trump’s Debt is a National Security RiskTrump has been pursuing real estate projects in Russia, Turkey and the Philippines.Saudi Arabia paid for "500 nights at Trump’s Washington hotel in 2016 within a month of his election" and "Then-Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak patronized the Trump hotel in D.C. in 2017."Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also made sure to tell Trump “Actually, last time I traveled to the United States, I stayed in New York near Central Park, and I stayed at the Trump Tower,” during that infamous phone call that got Trump impeached. Links and sources: https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/jtkrb8/%CF%84rump_campaign_gets_laughed_out_of_court_for/gc7j1vd/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3 Обсудить: делать зарядку каждый день всю жизнь, заниматься дыхательными практиками, больше читать полезных авторов

This week we have our regular panel of Lan, George and Kyle! George brings us a blog post "What I Learned From Looking at 200 Machine Learning Tools." Which, the author, talks about a list complied of all of the AI/ML tools he could find. Lan brings us a news article "Making Blurry Faces Photorealistic Only Goes So Far." This article discusses how AI researchers discover inherent resolution limit to "upsampling" of pixelated faces. Last but not least, Kyle brings us the paper for this week! He brings the paper, "Logical Neural Networks." This paper proposes a novel framework seamlessly providing key properties of both neural nets (learning) and symbolic logic (knowledge and reasoning). All works are linked in the show notes.   

Today we discuss the Lion king remake, as well as some of the other movies released recently. If you're brave enough to carry on listening, we also discuss what games we've been playing. Find out what film Amrik once watched four times in-a-row on a plane, what classic video game Zayne has grown to hate and which restaurants have been accidentally bad-mouthed by our hosts! Enjoy!

On this week's Did We Watch The Same Film, we watched The Lion King, the 2019 remake of the 1994 Disney animated classic! Timestamps for the show are: 00:00:00 - Intro, thoughts on Killjoys and The Boys, emails! 00:16:10 - Pre-Review of The Lion King 2019 00:31:00 - Review of The Lion King 2019 If you'd like to write to us you can do so at didwewatch@gmail.com Recommendations for future films, questions for the hosts and anecdotes about your own film-watching experiences are all welcome! If you'd like to support us, please consider subscribing to us on iTunes or Spotify and leaving us a review.

Alita “The movie with the cyborgs and the kicking and the punching.” There are two kinds of film: people in a room talking and people in a room kicking and punching. Robert Rodriguez lands firmly within only one of these groups. Accidentally fitting Alita into the Robocop universe. Shooting and punching people in their robo-bits. Cyborgs Robots arms everywhere. But maybe not just for show? Cyborg arms as the cyborg future cliche. Replacing your limbs proactively for fun and profit. Replacing all of your joints, but not just with hinges. Defining “cyborg” more precisely in consideration of the definition of “cybernetics.” Cybernetics is a transdisciplinary approach for exploring regulatory systems—their structures, constraints, and possibilities. -Wikipedia “Real” cyborgs We are already cyborgs, we just don’t ourselves enough credit. Cyborgification as performance. Designing a new hearing aid to help us talk to bats.Imagining all the ways in which implanted and attached technologies would help improve the human experience. And what do we get? Always super-strong robot arms. Realizing you would need the whole-system upgrade to support the forces exerted upon/by your super-arm. Doing it right Don’t be a cyborg bicep bro. Taking the short route to functional cyborg limbs by using existing neuromuscular wiring. The difficulty of inventing new appendages or body formats. Photorealistic CG humans Wow dude this was actually pretty great. Sidestepping the uncanny valley slightly by going with anime eyes. Aperture and catching more light. Legolas with dinner-plate eyeballs. Neoteny. Nonsensical murder sports Future cybersports: more violent spectacle, less athleticism. Sports and functional immortality. Support the show!

Delirious Dads Gaming Podcast Episode 10: Photorealistic Easter Eggs   In episode 10, we discuss babies coming soon, and sibling expectation of the new arrivals.  Gaming news of the week includes a deal for COD fans, more details on Google's new game streaming service, and Unreal Engines Photorealistic graphics.  Hunter is back and ready to deliver a new game show segment that will leave you surprised.  Listen in for this and much more!   Website: www.deliriousdadsgaming.com   Podcast now listed in iTunes Store   Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/41oQcvEomysVJrK2mQFUJJ   Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/delirious-dads-gaming-podcast   Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCETUgEuwDv5oWUZJH8OAYiQ/featured?view_as=subscriber   Credits:Music created by- Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensecreativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Image enhancement Naive vs machine-intelligent image enhancement. “Photorealistic hallucination” and honest technical names. Reconsidering the absurdity of fictional image enhancement in the age of clever neural nets. Creative, artistic “enhancement” vs rigor. Paralyzation workarounds Well, breaking your spinal chord sure seems to suck. Spinal breaks and the autonomic nervous system. Bodily control via brain-machine interface. Transhumanism Extension of human functionality by implanted technology! Increasing neural communication speed, or shortening signal distance. Gun arms. Gun arms! Vocal device command by subvocalization. The AI “box test” Self-serving artificial intelligence. Yudkowsky’s AI  box test. Callback to Ex Machina. Additional stipulations. The true power of a goon with a wrench. How easy are humans to fool? Very. Yudkowsky's AI box test: Yudkowski.net Decipher RPG Pilot episode 1: Decipher SciFi Decipher RPG Pilot episode 2: Decipher SciFi Decipher RPG Pilot episode 3: Decipher SciFi Support the show!

Visit http://preeminence.tv to get your free Ultimate Guide to PreeminenceSteven Kozar is obsessed with detail. Even as a child, Steve was fussy about things needing to be a particular way. Fortunately he directed his personality into art; quickly landing on Hyper-Realism watercolor painting as his method and medium. After 30 years of perfecting his craft, Steve is counted as an eleite-level realism painters in the world. He began his professional career as an artist, just after dropping out of art school in 1986.Painting primarily in watercolour, with the occasional use of oil and acrylic, Steve's works are based on his travels through his native Wisconsin, the midwestern state in the USA. Like many artists in his field, Steve uses photographs from his travels as references back in his studio. The resulting paintings are subtle and cohesive; Steve layers colours on top of one another, allowing him to capture the light beautifully and create a unique atmosphere, so typical in his works. Learn more about the work of Steven Kozar at https://stevenkozar.comLooking to become the authoritative, preeminent voice in your space? Get your free Ultimate Guide to Preeminence at http://preeminence.tv

Visit http://preeminence.tv to get your free Ultimate Guide to PreeminenceSteven Kozar is obsessed with detail. Even as a child, Steve was fussy about things needing to be a particular way. Fortunately he directed his personality into art; quickly landing on Hyper-Realism watercolor painting as his method and medium. After 30 years of perfecting his craft, Steve is counted as an eleite-level realism painters in the world. He began his professional career as an artist, just after dropping out of art school in 1986.Painting primarily in watercolour, with the occasional use of oil and acrylic, Steve's works are based on his travels through his native Wisconsin, the midwestern state in the USA. Like many artists in his field, Steve uses photographs from his travels as references back in his studio. The resulting paintings are subtle and cohesive; Steve layers colours on top of one another, allowing him to capture the light beautifully and create a unique atmosphere, so typical in his works. Learn more about the work of Steven Kozar at https://stevenkozar.comLooking to become the authoritative, preeminent voice in your space? Get your free Ultimate Guide to Preeminence at http://preeminence.tv

Is that real? Faux Real Shirt is the perfect combination of quirky, funny, and scandalous pictures for consumers who want to stand out from the everyday fashion crowd. Our Haunt Collective teams brings you the new items for this Halloween #haunter

This episode of Dude That's Dope we interview Mark Feldman, an animator and designer based out of Los Angeles, Ca, who specializes in Photorealistic rendering and drone cinematography. Some cool Drone footage Mark talks about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MBW8zoZUR4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQDcDZ6rmGE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubny2_SpNp4 and Some more stuff Mark has worked on: http://mark-feldman.com/ and his instagram is: @lifted_fpv

WebGL has made great improvements over the past years. However, it still can't provide photorealistic experiences alone. In order to provide products with the best look and feel, we decided to use server-side 3D rendering. In this session, we show you how we built our real-time 3D configurator stack using Amazon EC2 Elastic GPUs, RESTful microservices, Lambda@Edge, Amazon CloudFront and other services.

In this episode, we talk about organization and how it will save your life with and without photography. We also solidify the new Tech Briefs section with news about Adobe Lightroom's new updates. Website: www.BryonSummers.com Instagram: @BryonSummers Phocabulary: Compositing Combining multiple images together using masking and/or transparency. Modern digital imaging software uses a multi-layer model, where each image layer can have a mask as well as many degrees of overall transparency. Photorealistic compositing relies on matching lighting, vantage points, focal length, focus, palette, and precise edge masking. Source: 30-Second Photography Book: The 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene Music: KB @push-music --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/bryonsummers/support

In this episode NOVAxDragon, ZitterZap and special guest Ertsi talk about Finland, BF3 Premium numbers, Tank Superiority mode, Battlefield 4 release date, your goals on the Battlefield, Photorealism in games and give out Battlefield 3 tips. Follow our special guest Ertsi on twitter.com/ertsi86 and visit his YouTube channel at youtube.com/user/ernokoivistoinen