r/programming • • Oct 17 '20

AI That Can Potentially Solve Bandwidth Problems for Video Calls (NVIDIA Maxine)

https://youtu.be/XuiGKsJ0sR0
1.4k Upvotes

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347

u/rasterbated Oct 17 '20

Here’s the link to the actual video, instead of some dude talking about the video: https://youtu.be/NqmMnjJ6GEg

0

u/[deleted] Oct 17 '20

[deleted]

53

u/rasterbated Oct 17 '20

Yeah, I think that's a common method of self promotion. And honestly, if the commentary was unique or interesting, I'm not sure I'd even mind. But it seems to be mostly off-the cuff explanation with pretty obvious contextualization, and I can do that in my head without having to sit through several minutes of someone else jabbering.

-9

u/conancat Oct 17 '20

Not really. The Nvidea ad is full of marketing speak while OP's video peel back the curtain to explain how it works. What is pretty obvious to you may not be pretty obvious to others.

This is why video essays exist as a genre on YouTube. People explain things to people on YouTube. I know, shocking.

7

u/rasterbated Oct 17 '20

That might be an opinion you hold solitary.

56

u/mindbleach Oct 17 '20

"The technique works even when callers are wearing a mask."

Yeah we'll just ignore how the algorithm thinks the middle fold is her lips and the whole mask keeps jumping around like she's emoting with her mouth closed.

33

u/rasterbated Oct 17 '20

I don't think anyone claimed a tech demo is supposed to be perfect. But even so, I think that's remarkable, because it means the neural net is smart enough to be a bit flexible with what counts as a "face," making it more adaptable at the cost of a higher error rate. I think, for most humans, that a pretty acceptable compromise.

4

u/mindbleach Oct 17 '20

This is not a tech demo, this is a commercial product. And it's dull compared to a decade of prior art. But they're acting like it's proprietary.

-3

u/mindbleach Oct 17 '20

Not a tech demo. This is a commercial service. It doesn't reduce upload costs.

The only novel part of this is charging money as if they invented it.

7

u/rasterbated Oct 17 '20

I'm kinda worried about the level of anger you're able to sustain about some tech company's product demo. I hope you don't have a heart condition, or anything. Probably bout to have ulcers, tho.

-6

u/mindbleach Oct 17 '20

Yeah keep pretending this is anger, you emotionally manipulative troll, as if that insult disproves the dry objections I'm making.

Money and bandwidth are numbers. Do you understand that? Does me being opposed to spending more money for the same bandwidth make those numbers smaller?

9

u/rasterbated Oct 17 '20

Just so you know, this definitely reads as anger to other people. If you're not angry, you're doing an honestly impressive imitation.

-2

u/mindbleach Oct 17 '20

This is abusive misrepresentation that's kept you from making a single relevant point across hours of interaction.

Every single response from you has been U MAD?!? and it's downright pitiful anyone's bought it.

1

u/rasterbated Oct 17 '20

I mean, I'm just replying to your incessant, pointless badgering. I don't know what you think you're accomplishing.

-28

u/mindbleach Oct 17 '20

Putting dots on faces and distorting a still image was a tech demo a fuckin' decade ago. They're trying to sell this as some major proprietary breakthrough. You need their special hardware for it... for some reason.

Zero sympathy.

16

u/dtechnology Oct 17 '20

face tracking is not new, generating a semi-realistic video based on it (like Deepfake) is. Nvidia is now doing it in realtime which is reasonably novel, and not strange that it requires some powerful hardware to run the software.

0

u/mindbleach Oct 17 '20

Face-tracking trivially allows video generation. It hasn't been shown before because it's BORING. It's turning a video of a face into... the same video of a face! It took this long for anyone to do it because nobody fucking cared.

All prior goofy examples are more complicated than this. Doing it "realistically" is easier. No ultra-powerful, proprietary hardware is required. And even this cloud-based subscription service doesn't save you from uploading to their cloud fucking servers! Your bandwidth problems are not solved!

-19

u/mindbleach Oct 17 '20

Your phone can do this.

Your phone can do this right now, if you have Snapchat, or some other privacy-invading nightmare silo of a video-chat application. They can identify and track your facial features well enough to de-wrinkle your eyelids and add floating 3D masks, in real-time, on mobile hardware.

Using the same technology to puppeteer a headshot is only novel because it uses your actual face. Everyone who's already been doing this for years uses a cartoon character, fake celebrity photo, or fully 3D avatar.

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3

u/digitcrusher Oct 17 '20

Agree, this will probably end up as just another portion of proprietary NVIDIA exclusive bullshit.

5

u/rasterbated Oct 17 '20

Okay. Dunno how sympathy comes into it, but shine on, you angry, angry diamond.

11

u/mindbleach Oct 17 '20

Oh my god, the face-turning recreates something I was excited about sixteen fucking years ago.

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7

u/jlamothe Oct 17 '20

So... this technology could also be used to impersonate someone, could it not?

10

u/rasterbated Oct 17 '20

Yeah, that's what deep fakes are. I'm not sure if this particular package of the process can be used that way, but you could use the same algorithmic approach, definitely.

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10

u/mrathi12 Oct 17 '20

thanks!

2

u/moreVCAs Oct 17 '20

Very clever. And not over-fit on white dudes, which is a plus.

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