Presentation
SIGGRAPH 2024 Opening Session & Keynote Speaker: Mark Sagar, Beyond the Illusion of Life
DescriptionSIGGRAPH 2024 officially starts with opening remarks from Conference Chair Andres Burbano, ACM SIGGRAPH leadership, and the ACM President.
Remarks to be followed by the Keynote Speaker Dr. Mark Sagar.
The essence of animation is creating the illusion of life, convincing the audience that a character is alive and has its own feelings and thoughts. Is it possible to bring an interactive digital character to “life” who can “think,” “feel,” have experiences, and act with volition? What is it, exactly, to think, to feel, to experience? In this keynote, Dr. Mark Sagar will discuss his team’s biologically based approach, where they are developing a virtual nervous system analogous to our own, combining computational models of sensory, cognitive and emotional processes, language, behavior, and motor systems. These systems activate virtual muscles to animate a virtual face and body, sensing, learning, acting, and reacting in real time. The interoperation of these systems in face-to-face and shared interactions is exemplified in projects like BabyX, a simulated toddler which aims to enhance our comprehension of social learning and behavior — but it can also serve as groundwork for achieving human-like cooperation with future artificial intelligence. Dr. Sagar will elaborate how creating the inner life of a character is strongly linked with the “body,” one of the central thematic focuses of the conference.
Double-Academy Award winner Dr. Mark Sagar is the co-founder and Former Chief Science Officer of Soul Machines and Director of the Laboratory for Animate Technologies at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute. Mark and his team are bringing technology to life, pioneering the creation of autonomously animated virtual humans with virtual brains and nervous systems — capable of highly expressive face-to-face interaction and real-time learning and emotional response — to create the next generation of human interaction with biologically inspired artificial intelligence. Mark has a Ph.D. in engineering from the University of Auckland and was a postdoctoral fellow at MIT. He previously worked as the special projects supervisor at Weta Digital and Sony Pictures Imageworks and developed technology for the digital characters in blockbusters such “Avatar,” “King Kong,” and “Spiderman 2.” His pioneering work in computer-generated faces was recognized with two consecutive Scientific and Engineering Oscars in 2010 and 2011. Mark was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2019 and was named New Zealand Innovator of the Year in 2022.
Remarks to be followed by the Keynote Speaker Dr. Mark Sagar.
The essence of animation is creating the illusion of life, convincing the audience that a character is alive and has its own feelings and thoughts. Is it possible to bring an interactive digital character to “life” who can “think,” “feel,” have experiences, and act with volition? What is it, exactly, to think, to feel, to experience? In this keynote, Dr. Mark Sagar will discuss his team’s biologically based approach, where they are developing a virtual nervous system analogous to our own, combining computational models of sensory, cognitive and emotional processes, language, behavior, and motor systems. These systems activate virtual muscles to animate a virtual face and body, sensing, learning, acting, and reacting in real time. The interoperation of these systems in face-to-face and shared interactions is exemplified in projects like BabyX, a simulated toddler which aims to enhance our comprehension of social learning and behavior — but it can also serve as groundwork for achieving human-like cooperation with future artificial intelligence. Dr. Sagar will elaborate how creating the inner life of a character is strongly linked with the “body,” one of the central thematic focuses of the conference.
Double-Academy Award winner Dr. Mark Sagar is the co-founder and Former Chief Science Officer of Soul Machines and Director of the Laboratory for Animate Technologies at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute. Mark and his team are bringing technology to life, pioneering the creation of autonomously animated virtual humans with virtual brains and nervous systems — capable of highly expressive face-to-face interaction and real-time learning and emotional response — to create the next generation of human interaction with biologically inspired artificial intelligence. Mark has a Ph.D. in engineering from the University of Auckland and was a postdoctoral fellow at MIT. He previously worked as the special projects supervisor at Weta Digital and Sony Pictures Imageworks and developed technology for the digital characters in blockbusters such “Avatar,” “King Kong,” and “Spiderman 2.” His pioneering work in computer-generated faces was recognized with two consecutive Scientific and Engineering Oscars in 2010 and 2011. Mark was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2019 and was named New Zealand Innovator of the Year in 2022.
Contributor
Event Type
Keynote Speaker
TimeMonday, 29 July 20249:00am - 10:30am MDT
LocationBluebird Ballroom
Livestreamed
Recorded
Full Conference
Full Conference Supporter
Virtual Access
Experience
Exhibits Only
Exhibitor Full Conference
Exhibitor Experience
Monday
