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Nvidia Uses AI to Slash Bandwidth on Video Calls

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Re: Nvidia Uses AI to Slash Bandwidth on Video Calls

#51

Post by rhn_mk1 »

OrderlyTiamat wrote: post #12

> they have managed to reduce the required bandwidth for a video call by an order of magnitude. In one example, the required data rate fell from 97.28 KB/frame to a measly 0.1165 KB/frame – a reduction to 0.1% of required bandwidth. A nitpick, perhaps, but isn't that three orders of magnitude? We've already seen people use outlandish backgrounds in calls, now it's going to be possible to design similar outlandish vie…

The avatar thing isn't one-sided either: it'd be an awesome power to have to remake others!

Real-time silly hats for people I talk to and I'm sold.

Re: Nvidia Uses AI to Slash Bandwidth on Video Calls

#52

Post by Steltek »

My first thought was about the diversity of faces used in the demo and how ten years ago, computers didn't think black people were humans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4DT3tQqgRM

But after that, I was reminded of the paranoia (or not?) around Zoom and that, for an extreme example, the CCP was mining and generating facial fingerprints and social networks using video calls. It seems like this technology is the same concept except put to a useful purpose.

Re: Nvidia Uses AI to Slash Bandwidth on Video Calls

#53

Post by throwaway316943 »

OrderlyTiamat wrote: post #12

> they have managed to reduce the required bandwidth for a video call by an order of magnitude. In one example, the required data rate fell from 97.28 KB/frame to a measly 0.1165 KB/frame – a reduction to 0.1% of required bandwidth. A nitpick, perhaps, but isn't that three orders of magnitude? We've already seen people use outlandish backgrounds in calls, now it's going to be possible to design similar outlandish vie…

My prediction is that people will just change their avatars as often as they change their personal fashion. For some that’s never and for others it’s every season or even more often.

Re: Nvidia Uses AI to Slash Bandwidth on Video Calls

#54

Post by bnegreve »

jamra wrote: post #39
colechristensen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would be easier to see if they had a comparison between a high bit rate traditionally compressed video and their neural net compressed video. To me the facial shapes and movement seem just a little bit wrong like you’re looking at a 3D animation of a person instead of a video.

They do this using GANs so I don’t think it is compressed in any way. Instead, the points on the face are sent across the net and the face is actually generated. I’m sure it can get better with time. There is a site thispersondoesnotexist.com that uses the same tech but looks real.

> Instead, the points on the face are sent across the net and the face is actually generated.

This is not fundamentally different from other lousy compression algorithms.

The bits that are missing are reconstructed using a bias built in the compression algorithm. Deep learning based algorithms simply have a more realistic bias, so the artifacts that introduced to replace the missing bits are less noticeable.

Re: Nvidia Uses AI to Slash Bandwidth on Video Calls

#55

Post by Borborygymus »

Look neat. I wonder that the system requirements / license for software will be?

There's a real network effect with things like codecs - unless some significant proportion of calls can use it, it'll remain a cool but obscure experiment.

I hope Nvidia have the foresight to release something that'll run on any hardware, and under a permissive license, but I suspect not.

The idea is out there already (it's basically deep fake tech, right?), and I'm sure it won't be so long before some open source version of it gets released. Nvidia would be wise to get out in front of that and at least have their brand associated with a widely used variant on the theme.

Re: Nvidia Uses AI to Slash Bandwidth on Video Calls

#56

Post by bredren »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #30

Now the person you are speaking to is going to be n% (partially) emulated. n is going to increase in future. One day there will be a paid feature letting you emulate 100% of yourself to respond to video calls when you are not available. And finally, they will replace yourself even without you knowing, and even after you die.

This was part of what drove me off Twitter after the last election. I realized through my links and tweets that I had already provided enough training data for a bot that could not only sound like me, but share content from the future that I might be interested in.

Re: Nvidia Uses AI to Slash Bandwidth on Video Calls

#58

Post by TonyTrapp »

Steltek wrote: post #52

My first thought was about the diversity of faces used in the demo and how ten years ago, computers didn't think black people were humans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4DT3tQqgRM But after that, I was reminded of the paranoia (or not?) around Zoom and that, for an extreme example, the CCP was mining and generating facial fingerprints and social networks using video calls. It seems like this technology is the same…

> ten years ago, computers didn't think black people were humans

And they still don't often enough (see recent ExamSoft issues discussed e.g. here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24641063 )

Re: Nvidia Uses AI to Slash Bandwidth on Video Calls

#59

Post by dkarp »

My tests already take twice as long to run when I’m on a Google hangout. For my case, I’d honestly rather use more bandwidth and do minimal local processing. If my machine is slowed down any more then I might have to stop working completely and focus on the meeting I’m in!
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