AI’s on the Prize

I don’t tend to be filled with wonder when I see or hear the word “deepfake” – quite the opposite, in fact – but self-professed “World Leader in Artificial Intelligence Computing” NVIDIA is putting this technology to interesting use with NVIDIA Broadcast, its tool for live streaming and video conferencing. 

There isn’t anything particularly groundbreaking about NVIDIA Broadcast’s ability to “turn your room into a home studio” – we can all add fancy backgrounds to our Zoom, Teams, or Google Meet calls – but the company has now added a “drastic enhancement” to the software in the form of Eye Contact. 

Eye Contact “moves the eyes of the speaker to simulate eye contact with the camera… The eyes retain their natural color and blink, and there’s even a disconnect feature – in case you look too far away – to transition smoothly between simulated and real eyes.”

So, essentially the technology “deepfakes” your eyes to make sure they stay looking into the camera. If this all sounds a bit sinister on paper, as it were, the short clip below shows that it’s actually quite impressive.

Of course, how necessary you find the Eye Contact tool depends on your level of involvement with live streaming and video conferencing. If you spend a lot of your working life leading online meetings, it could be handy – you don’t want to be looking offscreen or down at your notes too much. It’s possibly less useful if you’re just catching up with Auntie Kylie in Woolloomooloo…

But I wonder how software glitches might affect the tool. Imagine giving a presentation while fixing the camera with a crazed, unblinking stare for a full hour… It may not be quite the look you’re going for.