IEEE Spectrum June, 2014 - 53

municate it," says Angela Tinwell, senior
lecturer in games and creative technologies at the University of Bolton, in the
United Kingdom.
Sebastian Sylwan, Weta's chief technology officer, is optimistic nevertheless.
"Computer graphics is at most 30 years
old," he notes. "And digital doubles have
just arrived."
A half century from now, when we've
become accustomed to seeing utterly convincing digital doubles, what will we wish
we had done today? Collected the raw
data to perfectly re-create historical figures, says Nvidia's Huang. Right now, we
should be using digital motion-capture
techniques to record world figures giving
speeches, being interviewed, or performing, just as painters captured influential
figures beginning in the 17th century and
photographers in the 19th. "We should
capture Obama, the Dalai Lama, all the
people of consequence in the world,"
Huang says. "Once we capture it, we can
enjoy it in ever-increasing fidelity as computer graphics advances."
Farther out, probably more than
30 years from now, digital humans-
maybe displayed as holograms, maybe
as robots-will be able to interact convincingly and satisfyingly with us. Ultraadvanced processors and software will
let them interpret our thoughts and feelings and respond inventively with humor
and compassion. "This could help reduce
loneliness in an increasingly aging population," says Tinwell.
It's possible that these digital entities
will employ a form of astoundingly sophisticated mimicry, mastering the memories,
the social conventions, and the messy
welter of emotions that underpin human
relationships. They'll either understand
us or fake it so well it won't matter.
And to quote the movie title, that's
entertainment. n
PoST your CommenTS at http://
spectrum.ieee.org/movies0614

illuSTraTion by

MCKIBILLO

What could poSSIbly Go WronG?

When
the Fake
Trumps
the Real

in a world of synthetic faces,
human expression could become
hard to read
computer-generated
characters that are indistinguishable from humans
are today typically limited to
cameo appearances in action
movies, except in a few rare
and costly feature films. But
when they become the norm
on video-game displays as
well as on cinema screens,
they might not only play interactive games with us. They
might start playing lasting
games with our minds.
The human brain evolved
to understand the subtle
cues of people's emotions in
order to anticipate their future

behavior. When we lived in
caves, that understanding
could mean the difference
between life and death.
While computer-generated
characters may, on the surface,
be indistinguishable from
their human counterparts,
no one believes they'll be
reflecting all the nuances of
human expression anytime
soon. Even so, people will likely
spend more and more time
interacting with them. They'll
not only be entertainers but
also teachers and customerservice agents. And there
lies the danger, according
SPectrum.ieee.orG

to Angela Tinwell, senior
lecturer in games and creative
technologies at the University
of Bolton, in the United
Kingdom. When children
grow up spending much of
their days interacting with
realistic computer-generated
characters, says Tinwell,
they may be handicapped
when it comes to interacting
with the real thing.
On the other hand, it's
equally possible that the
brain will adapt and learn
new ways to distinguish the
genuine human from the
virtual impostor, says Ayse P.
Saygin, associate professor
of cognitive science and
neurosciences at the University
of California, San Diego.
But even in that bestcase scenario lurks a major
potential problem. A person
who spends much of his
childhood in virtual worlds
might not want to leave them,
Saygin says. When a game
can adapt to your mood better
than most acquaintances
do, people might prefer the
game to the friends. "When
you go into the real world
and people, unlike a game,
are not engineered to
entertain you and cater to your
needs, or don't understand
automatically when you are
annoyed or happy, you will
want to go home and hang
out with your avatar friends,"
says Saygin. "I absolutely
believe this technology will do
a lot of good. But replacing
human relationships could be
the dark side of this."
Writers and directors have
already started to explore
such themes. The 2013 film
Her spins a tale around a man
who develops a romantic
relationship with what the
movie calls an intelligent
"operating system," akin to
an extremely smart Siri.
"Sometimes," Saygin says,
"I think, in the Darwinian way,
that things that aren't good for
us won't be part of our future.
But look at smoking-people
got addicted even though
it was bad for them, and we
are only now correcting that
behavior." -T.S.P.

north american

jun 2014

http://http:// http://spectrum.ieee.org/movies0614 http://SPectrum.ieee.orG

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum June, 2014