A fascinating technical lecture on the creativity of bioengineering for the penultimate week of the Creative Process course…
Associate Professor Mark Sagar (Auckland Bioengineering Institute) leads the Laboratory for Animate Technologies at the University of Auckland, which specialises in facial animation and interactive autonomously animated systems (or what non-scientists might think of as biologically inspired ‘artificial intelligence’).
In the lecture, Associate Professor Sagar explained that it is now possible to begin to build sophisticated computer simulations incorporating current theoretical models of human brain systems and the biomechanics of human muscle movement. By creating programmes that integrate these, his team can make ‘virtual people’: real-time interactive avatars that can ‘see’ and ‘hear’. The most dramatic example is the creation of ‘Baby X’, who is a lifelike computer-generated infant whose responses range from emotional (smiling at friendly talk, crying if abandoned) to simplified aspects of cognition (associating words with images).
The process behind these extraordinary creations is highly collaborative. Because there are so many highly complex factors in human response, a whole team of programmers is required to create a single avatar. Several members of Associate Professor Sagar’s team gave a glimpse into their part of the process:
Werner Ollewagen talked about pixels and polygons, illustrating the many shapes and structures needed to create a realistic human eye. Tim Wu discussed creative problem solving, using the challenge of developing systems that can produce cost-effective personalised human avatars. Khurram Jawed explained the process of creating computer algorithms. Oleg Efimov showed the complexity of the various processes used to construct the seamless whole, and indicated that the result came from a series of “elegant solutions” to computational and design challenges.
Associate Professor Sagar ended the lecture with a foray into the ‘big questions’, exploring HOW human beings think and how the creative process can be mapped in the brain, showing the various sections being activated to potentially trigger the EUREKA moment of insight or inspiration.
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