Virtual humans wish you a happy new year with their talents

      Do you have such memories of the Spring Festival dinner table in your childhood? After having eaten and drunk a lot, you were playing with your seldom-seen friends, and suddenly you heard an adult calling your name: Come on, put on a show for everyone!

　　Now that you have become an adult, you may no longer want to treat children in this way. Even when you see a child being called out and being unable to refuse despite being reluctant, you still feel a little sympathetic, but you just feel bad about ruining the atmosphere.

　　'Why not let AI put on a show! ' This year you can say that.

　　01 AI painter’s new talent

　　The one singing "Passing by the World" is Xia Yubing. Xiaoice CEO Li Di said in CCTV's "Dialogue" column that "this singing voice should be the most technologically advanced artificial intelligence singing voice synthesis in the world so far." If you close your eyes and listen, the modification of the singing method and the pauses between sentences are very natural, and it is really difficult to tell that this singing voice is from AI.

　　The versatile Xia Yubing caused netizens to exclaim as soon as she appeared: "This is the ceiling of virtual people!"

　　Xia Yubing is not only in this video. As an AI being incubated by XiaoIce's artificial intelligence framework, she graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2019. After practicing different painting schools, she chose to specialize in Chinese landscape painting. Her works are currently on display at the China Pavilion at the Dubai Expo.

　　By learning from the works of a large number of human artists, Xia Yubing has a stable creative ability. Before 24:00 on New Year's Eve, you can also ask her to paint for you, and the quality is consistent with her exhibition in the China Pavilion at the Dubai Expo. Search the WeChat and Douyin applet 'AI Painter Xia Yubing' or click https://chinesepainting.xiaoice.com/ (click 'Read original text' at the end of the article to jump) to enter the painting page.

　　Although she only draws one picture at a time, it seems that no matter how many pictures you ask her to draw, she will not refuse you. After all, one of the characteristics of AI is "high concurrency", which can complete many tasks at the same time. After the picture is finished, she will also make a comment from her own perspective.

　　02 AI singer who has learned folk singing is waiting for you to create a New Year's song

　　Chen Shuiruo is another member of the XiaoIce framework. She is a singer who has recently learned folk singing. Come and listen to her singing Li Yugang's "Huaxia". Li Yugang said, "It sounds great!" Chen Shuiruo and Li Yugang also sang a song together, which was published on Xinhua News Agency's Daily Telegraph: "The three-dimensional virtual lady dreamily linked up with Li Yugang to cover "Huaxia", wishing you a happy new year on New Year's Eve!

　　Chen Shuiruo is not only in this video. She and two other AI singers, He Chang and Chen Ziyu, have joined the NetEase Tianyin mini program. Everyone can enter the mini program, enter the person they want to bless and the blessing words, and then a song will be generated. They can also change the accompaniment, lyrics, and singers according to their own wishes, and finally make a unique blessing song.

　　AI beings like Chen Shuiruo and Xia Yubing not only have their own images and singing voices, but also the ability to perform songs, and even the ability to create content and provide artistic criticism, all of which are generated by the Xiaoice framework.

　　The general technical principle behind this is: through XiaoIce's neural network rendering technology, a facial feature that did not exist originally is created, and then the facial feature is replaced in the video template, and a series of controls are made on the expression. In this way, you can see the same breathing, mouth shape, blinking, and eyebrow raising in the video that are consistent with the sound, similar to a real person. According to the actual content of the video, the video template can also be adjusted, such as changes in movements, expressions, and expression content.

　　XiaoIce Company introduced that the first step of AI face creation is the most industrialized at present. It also avoids the abuse of real human faces. Other common virtual human video technologies usually require finding a real person to shoot, then replace the virtual person's head, or use a real person for motion capture. Such methods are either costly or still rely heavily on real people.

　　03 Make virtual humans rich and diverse

　　The fact that you can listen to an AI singing performance by entering the mini program is the result of years of technical accumulation and thinking by the XiaoIce team.

　　Initially, the XiaoIce team realized the importance of emotional intelligence to artificial intelligence and began to explore conversational experiences that could provide companionship. In 2017, XiaoIce proposed the concept of AI Creation. At the 9th-generation XiaoIce launch conference in 2021, the XiaoIce team shared the complete process of AI Creation for the first time. The entire process includes three parts: content generation, interpretation, and content packaging.

　　In the future, these AI singers will accompany people in more diverse forms. A few days ago, XiaoIce announced a strategic partnership with Changba Technology. Relying on the XiaoIce framework, Changba Technology will upgrade the terminal product experience. Singers such as Chen Shuiruo, He Chang, and Chen Ziyu will join the Changba smart TV application under the Changba Group member company Jizhi Changxiang to accompany users in work and life scenarios. This means that AI singers can appear in different places such as portable devices, living rooms, and smart cars to accompany people.

　　XiaoIce and the AI ​​musicians within her framework

　　The creative ability not only increases the richness of AI beings as virtual subjects and becomes part of their personality, but also allows each AI being to present different characteristics.

　　This year, all kinds of good-looking virtual people often appeared in front of us. The XiaoIce team believes that the virtual people of the future will not only have an appearance. "Sentient beings are a very unique existence for human society. When we humans believe that the other party can communicate with us emotionally, everything will be different." Li Di said in the "Dialogue" column.

　　As sentient beings, humans use different art forms such as music and painting to express themselves. When AI has this ability, people will interact with it as a "sentient being."

　　XiaoIce believes that we are in a very early and primitive stage of virtual humans. 'The world needs far more virtual humans than we can imagine today, and the number is far greater than a few top virtual stars. This is a huge and unprecedented era.'