Category: Virtual Beings Grants

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Virtual Beings Summit Returns, First Grant Winners Revealed

In the summer the first Virtual Beings Summit was held in San Francisco, bringing together innovators in this space as the experimentation into virtual beings continues to grow. Today, sees the arrival of the second summit, this time held at the United Talent Agency (UTA) Theater in Beverly Hills alongside revealing the first Virtual Beings Grants winners.

UTA Building crop

The summit aims to bring leaders in the field of entertainment and artificial intelligence to discuss virtual beings, avatars, agents, assistants, and influencers. If you’re not sure what a virtual being is they’re described as: “A character that you know isn’t real but with whom you can build a Two-way emotional relationship.” You’ve probably already come across one in your everyday life, such as Amazon’s Alexa, Lil Miquela on Instagram or even the recent news that James Dean is being brought back to life as a virtual actor. When it comes to virtual reality (VR) the best example currently is Fable’s Wolves in the Walls featuring central character Lucy, with the final chapter arriving this month.

Experts talking at the Virtual Beings Summit will include Doug Roble (Digital Domain), Geoff McFetridge (artist), Chris Bregler (Google AI), and Emma Coats (Editorial Lead in Personality for Google Assistant), discussing topics across Digital Humans, Virtual Friends, Virtual Influencers, Conversational AI, Machine Learning and more. UTA’s Head of Ventures Sam Wick will also be hosting an Investor Panel featuring David Min, Jon Goldman, Clinton Foy, and Will Thompson.

As for the Virtual Beings Grant winners three have been chosen, Joylab, Rattapallax and Thoughtfish. It hasn’t been revealed how much each project received but the grants range from $1,000 to $25,000 USD depending on the idea.

Joylab - diner
Image credit: Joylab – diner

The key aspect for employing a virtual being within a VR experience is the ability to evoke a stronger emotional connection, therefore increasing that sense of presence and immersion a player feels. Using machine learning these virtual beings can then remember conversations and interactions, offering a unique experience for each person.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of the summit and virtual beings in general, reporting back as their implementation grows and becomes more advanced.

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Thinking About Creating a Virtual Being? Applications now Open for Grants up to $25,000

Yesterday saw the launch of the first Virtual Beings Summit in San Francisco, a conference aimed at those interested in the idea of digital humans. As part of the event, the organisers announced the launch of the Virtual Beings Grants, an initiative designed to help fund creators with interesting ideas for a virtual being.

Virtual Beings Summit

The new programme will provide successful applicants with grants ranging from $1,000 to $25,000 USD depending on the idea. While creators projects can cover a range of Virtual Beings, whether that’s a Digital Human; Virtual Influencer, Virtual Assistant; Creative AIs, AI Tools for Virtual Beings or an Enterprise Virtual Being application, for example, there are four key grant categories applicants need to be aware of:

  • Games – how we play with virtual beings.

  • Enterprise – how a virtual being can assist us with our work

  • Social – How a virtual being can connect us

  • Education – how a virtual being can teach us things

There’s plenty of time to enter with the submission deadline being 17th September. Once in, applications will be judged by top founders, VCs, CEOs and researchers across Virtual Beings ecosystem. And winners will be announced 15th October 2019. For further information on the Virtual Beings Grant head to the official website.

Lil Miquela Instagram
Image of Lil Miquela off Instagram: @lilmiquela

If you’re unsure who or what a virtual being is, you may have already come across one. Those who use Instagram will likely have come across Virtual Influencers such as Lil Miquela, or in the realm of VR there’s Lucy from Wolves in the Walls, created by one of the biggest proponents for Virtual Beings; Fable, a company co-founded by Edward Saatchi, Executive Producer and Pete Billington, Creative Director.

Unlike a normal videogame character a Virtual Being such as Lucy utilises AI and machine learning, enabling her to evoke an emotional response from interactions and eventually have memories – thus creating a character with tangible human qualities. While still in its early stages the goal is to have Virtual Beings who – as Fable describes – ‘have their own lives and stories’, of which you can then become a part.

As the Virtual Beings Summit proved, there are plenty of industry professionals interested in this tech path, with the likes of Epic Games, Niantic Labs, Google, Microsoft and many more holding talks. As the technology develops VRFocus will keep you updated.