Our Research started with Baby-X

Today we deliver a Digital Workforce

Over seven years ago, Soul Machines pioneered research into progressing human-machine collaboration with Baby X. By combining models of physiology, cognition and emotion with advanced lifelike CGI, we set out to create a new form of biologically inspired AI.

Baby X was our first developmental prototype designed as both a stand-alone research project and as an expandable base to feed into commercial computer agents. She enables us to explore human cooperation with machines and the foundations for creating a digital consciousness.

Baby X was designed for research and has allowed Soul Machines to not only explore the models of human behavior but also to create autonomously animated AI avatars.

Baby X provides a foundation from which we learn, experiment, and continue to develop the world’s first end-to-end solution for dynamically creating, teaching, managing, and deploying Digital People.

The inspiration:

What is the essence of animation? What if a character could autonomously animate itself and you could interact with it? How do you bring a digital character to life?.

Problem to solve:

How would we create biologically inspired artificial intelligence? And, build a digital consciousness to create affective computing that interprets and simulates human emotion, engaging autonomously?

The vision:

To create AI avatars that can learn, interpret and interact with the world around them in the way that humans do.

The opportunity:

To make machines and AI as life-like as possible. To build human-like AI that has flexible intelligence and a dynamic interface that can relate to people.

anatomy of a digital brain
Baby X

Bringing Together Disciplines to Bridge the Digital and Human World

Baby X is based on and informed by significant research in key fields that have been integrated into a cohesive research and development effort. These include:

  • Advanced CGI
  • Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures
  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Science
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Cognitive Linguistics
  • Affective Computing

Together they enable BabyX to manifest and apply various models of the brain to enable scaled interactions and responses, creating a bridge to the human world.

“The best kind of system is where humans and AI work together … AI is basically an emulation of us.”

Dr. Ayanna Howard, Roboticist

Baby X

Developing Baby X’s Digital Brain

Baby X has her own Digital Brain which is based on the human brain, enabling her to sense, learn, adapt and communicate interactively in a way that feels alive and engaging.

The Digital Brain autonomously animates Baby X in real-time, creating a natural interaction between human and machine.

Biologically Inspired

Baby X is a simulation based on a real child aged around 18 months old. The face reflects a brain state or human ‘thoughts’. Facial behavior is affected by many factors—cognitive, emotional, and physiological — and as a result, Baby X provides a highly-detailed, holistic, and biologically based approach, far greater than has previously been attempted in animation simulation and traditional CGI.

Identity is expressed non-verbally through very effective facial expressions and body language. Our research with Baby X has enabled us to move to autonomous animation that dyadically creates a complete response to the human the Digital Person is interacting with – creating a deeper and more meaningful connection.

Baby X
Baby X

Bringing together the human and digital world

Soul Machines’ pioneering research extends to enabling Digital People to autonomously interact with the human world through digital interfaces.

One element of our research program includes connecting Baby X with a painting robot and an audience. Can we make a Digital Person that doesn’t just communicate and engage, but also creates?

“As Baby X will be engaged in the creative loop ‘her’ own painting evolves. We are exploring serendipity, playfulness, and the very issue of creativity. Can we make a computer which is able to do that? And if we can, then working with a digital person can make them an artistic collaborator to help us create things we have never imagined.”

Dr. Mark Sagar, Co-Founder, Soul Machines

Born of Research

Soul Machines’ research in human simulation and AGI is unique in its holistic approach to embodied cognition. Our philosophy is that a virtual brain requires a human-like embodiment to fit in a social world it can interact with, in order to learn and express in general human-like ways.

Our modeling approach draws upon the ideas of many influential thinkers in Neuroscience, Cognitive Science, Developmental Psychology, Physiology, Computer Science (Robotics, Affective Science, Artificial Life, Computer Graphics) and Language.

Advancing AI to AGI

Baby X expresses our ongoing research into how we can maximize the opportunity for human and machine collaboration. She doesn’t just connect to AI systems – she is at the forefront of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) research. Dedicated to exploring the boundaries of how AI can become more human-like.

A key part of Soul Machines’ technology is the capacity for what we call “Experiential Learning”. Baby X proactively learns through direct experience with people and content. Through interactively playing with the world around her, she discovers things about it in the way that we do.

“People are going to increasingly interact with machines, and those machines are going to be driven by AI. As people, we will need to learn how to relate to and trust those machines.”

Greg Cross, Co-Founder & Chief Business Officer, Soul Machines

Interested in collaboration?

See how digital people can breathe life into your online worlds
Disclaimer: The Soul Machines Digital Celebrity, Digital Melo, uses GPT, Generative Pre-trained Transformer by Open AI. GPT is a neural network machine learning model trained using internet data to generate any type of text. Soul Machines is using the Davinci model. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Soul Machines takes no responsibility for any conversation content generated by GPT. Further, the conversation content generated by GPT in no way represents or comprises the views or beliefs of Soul Machines, and Soul Machines does not warrant or guarantee the accuracy of any conversation content. The GPT integration is designed to showcase the power of technology—therefore the conversation content should not be taken as advice or guidance of any kind, and Soul Machines will not be responsible for any loss suffered as a result of reliance on such content, or use of this experience in any way.

FOR ME TO WORK BEST, I’D LIKE TO BE ABLE TO SEE YOU AND HEAR YOUR VOICE.
This will be just like a video call where we can talk face to face. If that sounds ok, please turn on access to your microphone and camera when prompted to do so.

I can find it hard to hear you when you’re in a noisy room, or when there are other conversations going on around you. Please call me from a quiet place and let’s keep this one-on-one for now.

The speed of your internet connection can have a big impact on the quality of the image during our conversation. If you do experience poor quality we’d love it if you could run a speed test and email your feedback at [email protected] when you end your session.

WHO ARE WE?
Soul Machines is a leader in the humanization of AI, creating autonomously animated Digital People that empower organizations to reimagine customer experiences. Soul Machines Limited is a New Zealand company located at L1, 106 Customs Street West, Auckland, 1010, New Zealand.

WHAT INFORMATION ARE WE COLLECTING?
For the Digital Person to be able to interact with you in an authentic and human way, their Digital Brain™ needs to collect and process information about your expressions. As soon as it is collected, this information is anonymized. We do not keep this information, provide it to third parties, or share it. It is purely used while you are interacting with the Digital Person to generate the best experience possible.

WHY ARE WE COLLECTING THIS INFORMATION?
We want your experience with the Digital Person to be as fun, natural, and engaging as possible. You can help us do this by allowing the Digital Person to study your expressions, interpret your emotional state, and respond appropriately. It’s just like a conversation with a real person where they are not just interpreting what you say, but how you say it.

In the process, you are helping advance technology and experiencing the future of human-to-machine interaction. All conversation data collected is anonymized and complies with current privacy practices and regulations. We take your privacy very seriously.

If you want to find out more information and how we collect and use your information, please see our Privacy Policy here.

THIRD-PARTY INFORMATION SOURCES
In order to respond to requests, Soul Machines may query third parties to obtain the data.
These include:
OpenAI Privacy Policy
OpenAI Terms of Use
Google Privacy Policy
Youtube Terms of Service
Let's Talk!
I agree to the Soul Machines Privacy Policy above and give consent to use my camera and mic to ensure the best experience while talking with Digital Melo.

TALK TO DIGITAL MELO




























Add to Calendar

Select your email host to add office hours to your calendar

Add to Calendar

Select your email host to add office hours to your calendar

Add to Calendar

Select your email host to add office hours to your calendar

Add to Calendar

Select your email host to add office hours to your calendar

Add to Calendar

Select your email host to add office hours to your calendar

Add to Calendar

Select your email host to add office hours to your calendar

Add to Calendar

Select your email host to add office hours to your calendar

See how digital people can breathe life into your online worlds
Disclaimer: The Soul Machines Digital Influencer Nova uses GPT, Generative Pre-trained Transformer by Open AI. GPT is a neural network machine learning model trained using internet data to generate any type of text. Soul Machines is using the Davinci model. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Soul Machines takes no responsibility for any conversation content generated by GPT. Further, the conversation content generated by GPT in no way represents or comprises the views or beliefs of Soul Machines, and Soul Machines does not warrant or guarantee the accuracy of any conversation content. The GPT integration is designed to showcase the power of technology—therefore the conversation content should not be taken as advice or guidance of any kind, and Soul Machines will not be responsible for any loss suffered as a result of reliance on such content, or use of this experience in any way.

FOR ME TO WORK BEST, I’D LIKE TO BE ABLE TO SEE YOU AND HEAR YOUR VOICE.
This will be just like a video call where we can talk face to face. If that sounds ok, please turn on access to your microphone and camera when prompted to do so.

I can find it hard to hear you when you’re in a noisy room, or when there are other conversations going on around you. Please call me from a quiet place and let’s keep this one-on-one for now.

The speed of your internet connection can have a big impact on the quality of the image during our conversation. If you do experience poor quality we’d love it if you could run a speed test and email your feedback at [email protected] when you end your session.

WHO ARE WE?
Soul Machines is a leader in the humanization of AI, creating autonomously animated Digital People that empower organizations to reimagine customer experiences. Soul Machines Limited is a New Zealand company located at L1, 106 Customs Street West, Auckland, 1010, New Zealand.

WHAT INFORMATION ARE WE COLLECTING?
For the Digital Person to be able to interact with you in an authentic and human way, their Digital Brain™ needs to collect and process information about your expressions. As soon as it is collected, this information is anonymized. We do not keep this information, provide it to third parties, or share it. It is purely used while you are interacting with the Digital Person to generate the best experience possible.

WHY ARE WE COLLECTING THIS INFORMATION?
We want your experience with the Digital Person to be as fun, natural, and engaging as possible. You can help us do this by allowing the Digital Person to study your expressions, interpret your emotional state, and respond appropriately. It’s just like a conversation with a real person where they are not just interpreting what you say, but how you say it.

In the process, you are helping advance technology and experiencing the future of human-to-machine interaction. All conversation data collected is anonymized and complies with current privacy practices and regulations. We take your privacy very seriously.

If you want to find out more information and how we collect and use your information, please see our Privacy Policy here.

THIRD-PARTY INFORMATION SOURCES
In order to respond to requests, Soul Machines may query third parties to obtain the data.
These include:
OpenAI Privacy Policy
OpenAI Terms of Use
Google Privacy Policy
Youtube Terms of Service
Let's Talk!
I agree to the Soul Machines Privacy Policy above and give consent to use my camera and mic to ensure the best experience while talking with Nova.

TALK TO NOVA




























See how digital people can breathe life into your online worlds

Disclaimer: The Soul Machines Digital Influencer Suki uses GPT-3, the third-generation Generative Pre-trained Transformer by Open AI. GPT-3 is a neural network machine learning model trained using internet data to generate any type of text. Soul Machines is using the Davinci model. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Soul Machines takes no responsibility for any conversation content generated by GPT-3. Further, the conversation content generated by GPT-3 in no way represents or comprises the views or beliefs of Soul Machines, and Soul Machines does not warrant or guarantee the accuracy of any conversation content. The GPT-3 integration is designed to showcase the power of technology—therefore the conversation content should not be taken as advice or guidance of any kind, and Soul Machines will not be responsible for any loss suffered as a result of reliance on such content, or use of this experience in any way.

Let’s talk! 

TALK TO SUKI