Have you ever imagined what voice assistants like Siri or Amazon’s Alexa would look like if we could see them? Like how we have already seen what Microsoft’s Cortana looks like in the company’s famous game franchise Halo.
Turns out that a company called Samsung STAR Labs has developed an AI video bot that looks exactly like a human being and even has emotions.
Dubbed Neon and developed by the company’s CEO Pranav Mistry, Neon is an AI digital avatar that mimics real human emotions and has its own personality.
Neon was showcased at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Samsung’s venture into ‘artificial humans’ is one step further from what it has done with Bixby.
With Neon, users will be able to interact with the avatar and it will reciprocate accordingly. With emotions! They can even get angry if you piss them off.
What’s more interesting is that Neon is not running on the cloud and is stored in the local memory which means it offers more privacy. Samsung STAR Labs has ensured that the user’s conversations remain private and secure.
Samsung STAR Lab’s CEO Pranav Mistry has said that Neon will not replace the current voice assistant, however, it might come out in a hologram form in the near future. There might also be a chance for it to come in a physical form but something like that will take at least 25 to 30 years.
The company has announced that a Neon cannot be owned and will only be made available via a subscription. They will not be customisable and will arrive fully developed. Samsung STAR Labs hasn’t announced what Neon will be priced at although don’t expect it to be an affordable bargain.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)