Personalized 3D avatars require an animatable representation of digital humans. Doing so instantly from monocular videos offers scalability to broad class of users and wide-scale applications. In this paper, we present a fast, simple, yet effective method for creating animatable 3D digital humans from monocular videos. Our method utilizes the efficiency of Gaussian splatting to model both 3D geometry and appearance. However, we observed that naively optimizing Gaussian splats results in inaccurate geometry, thereby leading to poor animations. This work achieves and illustrates the need of accurate 3D mesh-type modelling of the human body for animatable digitization through Gaussian splats. This is achieved by developing a novel pipeline that benefits from three key aspects: (a) implicit modelling of surface's displacements and the color's spherical harmonics; (b) binding of 3D Gaussians to the respective triangular faces of the body template; (c) a novel technique to render normals followed by their auxiliary supervision. Our exhaustive experiments on three different benchmark datasets demonstrates the state-of-the-art results of our method, in limited time settings. In fact, our method is faster by an order of magnitude (in terms of training time) than its closest competitor. At the same time, we achieve superior rendering and 3D reconstruction performance under the change of poses.

AI and us – iHuman explores what artificial intelligence and machine learning might mean for our lives, societies and futures. Featuring some of the pioneers of AI, this film looks at the most powerful and far-reaching technological development, both positively and with some concern. Computer scientists, data analysts, human rights lawyers, philosophers and psychologists deliver an overview of the last few years of AI but also a glimpse of the future. Surveillance across society, autonomous weapons, bias in algorithms, big data mining, AI-influenced online echo chambers – AI is already everywhere. It has already influenced politics – but will intelligent robots ever turn on us humans?

Statistics and machine learning have been increasingly popular in recent years. Nowadays, machine learning can assist us in making better judgments, and big data governs every aspect of our life. It has an impact on how we operate, shop, and do businesses. Looking for some Artificial Intelligence Documentaries to watch? Well, here is a list of some documentaries that you must watch.

It raises the question of the replacement of humanity by artificial intelligence by taking the measure of the influence of algorithms on our lives and gives the floor to many researchers, sociologists, human rights lawyers, scientists or investigative journalists, supporters or not of artificial intelligence and its omnipotence. Presentation of the documentary: "The creation of an artificial intelligence would be the greatest event in the history of mankind. But it could also be the last," said Stephen Hawking. The famous cosmologist had predicted the infinite growth of computer science but shared with some pioneers the fear that it would become uncontrollable. Today, AI promises to help cure diseases, cope with climate change or fight poverty.

Getting its world premiere at documentary festival IDFA in Amsterdam, Tonje Hessen Schei's gripping AI doc "iHuman" drew an audience of more than 700 to a 10 a.m. Many had their curiosity piqued by the film's timely subject matter--the erosion of privacy in the age of new media, and the terrifying leaps being made in the field of machine intelligence--but it's fair to say that quite a few were drawn by the promise of a Skype Q&A with National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, who made headlines in 2013 by leaking confidential U.S. intelligence to the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper. Snowden doesn't feature in the film, but it couldn't exist without him: "iHuman" is an almost exhausting journey through all the issues that Snowden was trying to warn us about, starting with our civil liberties. Speaking after the film--which he "very much enjoyed"--Snowden admitted that the subject was still raw for him, and that the writing of his autobiography (this year's "Permanent Record"), had not been easy. "It was actually quite a struggle," he revealed.