This week Nvidia's often intriguing AI Decoded series takes a deep dive into NVIDIA ACE, a revolutionary AI technology poised to change the game (literally) for how we interact with digital characters. Nvidia’s AI-powered interactive digital character tech will be unavoidable from video games to digital characters providing healthcare assistance.
The AI Decoded blog from Nvidia covers all of this and more. I find more human-like and interactive game characters exciting, but replacing medical professionals with an AI-powered digital character is a little too reminiscent of the 2012 dystopian sci-fi movie Elysium, where Matt Damon seeks medical attention from an AI-powered bot, and quickly finds himself at odds with it. I'm sure Nvidia has a more friendly version in mind, maybe we can get a cool digital character with a leather jacket, that dispenses healthcare knowledge and medication.
Let’s have a little peek at what Nvidia is up to.
What to expect
Powered by a Dream Team
ACE leverages the muscle of several NVIDIA technologies – NVIDIA Riva and NVIDIA Audio2Face – alongside powerhouse large language models (LLMs). This dream team allows NPCs to hear, process, generate dialogue, and respond in real time. Imagine NPCs that can hold natural conversations, adapting and flowing based on your choices! This opens a treasure trove of possibilities: unique quests, personalized interactions, and a level of immersion in games and virtual worlds never seen before.
Seeing is Believing
At GDC, a collaboration between Ubisoft's "NEO NPCs," Inworld's AI tech, and NVIDIA ACE showcased the future of social simulation. Players donned the hat of a private detective, engaging in real-time conversations with dynamic NPCs and utilizing their environmental awareness to complete objectives.
Similarly, the NVIDIA Kairos ramen shop demo (unveiled at CES) displayed the power of ACE with NPCs conversing amongst themselves and reacting realistically to their surroundings. These are just a taste of the possibilities!
Beyond the Arcade and more
The impact of ACE stretches far beyond gaming. Imagine realistic digital assistants in healthcare, like Hippocractic AI's patient care management agent, or UneeQ's AI-powered customer service avatars. The future of interactive experiences is here, and NVIDIA ACE is leading the charge.
That said, whether AI scares the heck out of you or you're a wait-and-see person, AI is here and as more tools and uses are developed it is probably best to stay informed and even learn to use them to your advantage. I recently taught my 70+-year-old family member how to use Copilot to summarize their emails and favorite news sources to speed up their morning reading.
AI tools can be useful timesavers for us all. It can't all be dystopian Terminator movies, with our AI creations deeming humanity useless, there can be a middle ground. Well, we hope, I'm kidding, having been in the company of many brands, having the hard conversations about the future of AI, I can share with you that in these early days, the folks behind the curtain are earnest, kind, and good people not hell-bent on the destruction of humanity.
You still have time to build your bunkers and hide your canned foods. I kid, I'm a kidder.
