japanese electronics and entertainment conglomerate Sony Group Corp said on Tuesday it has the technology to make humanoid robots quickly once it has identified how they could be effectively used.
"In terms of technology, several companies in the world including this one have enough technology accumulated to make them swiftly once it becomes clear which usage is promising," Sony Chief Technology Officer Hiroaki Kitano told Reuters in an interview.
"The key is the development of application," Kitano said
Sony launched a robot dog called Aibo more than two decades ago. It sold about 150,000 units of Aibo from 1999 until 2006 and launched an advanced version in 2018, selling about 20,000 units in the first six months
Humanoid robots have been in development for decades by Honda Motor Co. and Hyundai Motor Co. and in September, Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk showed off a prototype of its humanoid robot Optimus.
Musk's company is floating plans to deploy thousands of the robots in its factories, expanding eventually to millions around the world.
Kitano said Sony, armed with expertise in audio-visual technology and rich entertainment content including music and video games, was well positioned to play a major role in the metaverse, or immersive virtual worlds.
The metaverse is a vague term encapsulating the idea that consumers will spend more time in online simulated environments. While the concept is evolving, it has become a buzzword in briefings and a driver of industry earmarking.
"As for the metaverse, it's not like people would show up just because you've created a venue ... Content is what makes or breaks the metaverse.""In terms of technology, several companies in the world including this one have enough technology accumulated to make them swiftly once it becomes clear which usage is promising," Sony Chief Technology Officer Hiroaki Kitano told Reuters in an interview.
"The key is the development of application," Kitano said.
Speaking on stage at the conference in San Francisco, Rob Bredow, also senior vice president of creative innovation at Lucasfilm, said the company tends to use the term “face swap” rather than “deep fakes” because “it’s not just a matter of running a deep algorithm…that’s one of the tools we can use for sure, but we are using kind of a wide variety of tools.”
While Bredow said he expected machine learning and A.I. to be extremely transformative, it’s gone beyond that. Bredow said it completely changed their workflow in that something that used to take 10 artists six weeks to do—in the case of face swapping—now, once trained in the technology and material, can get results in seconds on minutes of footage.
During the interview, a clip showing footage of Mark Hamill portraying Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian—only it was a younger version of him. Bredow explained that Hamill was acting off camera and it was there was actually a stand-in for him, while Hamill voiced the performance.
The stand-in actor mimicked Hamill’s movements and expressions, but it was the studio’s job to turn the stand-in’s face into Hamill’s. They did so by using machine learning technology and their own in-house system, created with Disney research and Industrial Light & Magic’s own engineers. But it still wasn’t good enough for the highest quality of film streaming, so artists went back in with other techniques frame by frame, sometimes to add more detail.
“We get to collaborate with filmmakers who hopefully want to make something that no one has ever seen before,” he said. “And that’s when they pick up the phone and call us….we get to be their visual storytelling partners. And that’s all sorts of different techniques…it’s everything from matte paintings on glass 30 years ago to the latest A.I. and machine learning techniques that we’re using today.”
The company is all about innovation, Bredow said. He shared a story about an artist online who posted a version of their work, “a very, very good version on top of ours,” he noted. Bredow’s reaction? “How can I get a hold of this guy?” he told the audience. And two weeks later, that artist started at ILM.
“When somebody does great work, that’s the kind of person you want to bring in,” he said.
Bredow also spoke about the Abba as the famous Swedish band is touring again for the first time in approximately 40 years—with a bit of a twist. It’s a digital recreation of the band members’ younger selves.
“The illusion is you’re getting to go back to the 1970s and see Abba do a live con
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