Digital humans are playing an increasingly important role in our day-to-day lives. CG replicas of people dominate entertainment, from epic movies such as The Irishman to simple YouTube videos. Interacting with AI assistants has become second nature. And social media and news headlines are dominated by the issues surrounding deepfakes.

Joining Chris for this week’s podcast is Koki Nagano, who has become an expert in virtual doppelgangers via his research on digital humans at USC and his work at Pinscreen, a company that uses AI to supercharge the creation of 3D personal avatars from a single photo. Koki gets under the skin (literally) of what it takes to create a detailed digital human and talks about how he’s approached the uncanny valley from both sides. 

Listen to find out some incredible facts about your face — and how combining old and new technology could result in the most accurate digital humans to date.