This article was originally written by Rob Wu and published online by Spectrum News.

RALEIGH, N.C. — Artificial intelligence is no longer just changing how content is created. It’s starting to change how people are represented.

From fashion to entertainment, education and even a courtroom, AI avatars and digital doubles that can look and sound real are appearing in more places than ever before.

At N.C. State, students are learning how to build them.

Inside the Lab

Step inside N.C. State’s Virtual Production Lab, and it feels like a movie set.

There’s a massive LED wall, motion-tracking cameras and powerful software working together behind the scenes.

Put it all together, and the result is a digital avatar that can move and react like the real person it’s modeled after.

“Some of the AI digital doubles that are coming out, they go past the uncanny valley,” said Topher Maraffi, an assistant professor in the College of Design at N.C. State.

To create those digital doubles, students start with a smartphone.

They use apps like Epic Games’ RealityScan to scan a person’s face and create a spatially accurate model.

“We do that by just running a phone camera around their heads to get enough coverage,” Maraffi said. “That actually stitches together the model of the head.”

From there, the model is imported into a graphics engine, where students refine details and bring the avatar to life using motion capture technology.

With suits, gloves and even facial tracking, every movement can be streamed onto the digital version in real time. Students are getting hands-on experience with the same tools used in film and television production.

“A lot of film companies are now using virtual production and using digital doubles,” Maraffi said. “They started for things like stunt doubles, but nowadays you have de-aging in films, you have a lot of motion capture in games.”

While the technology isn’t cheap (the Rokoko motion capture suit alone costs around $3,500), prices are coming down.

“It’s becoming where individual creators and small studios can actually afford this stuff, and then they can do stuff that they’ve never been able to do before,” Maraffi said.

From Hollywood to Fashion and Controversy

Even if you haven’t stepped into a production lab, you’ve likely already seen AI avatars.

In the latest season of the show “Ted,” creator Seth MacFarlane used AI to transform his face into former President Bill Clinton for a scene. The actor said they tried prosthetics and traditional CGI, but it didn’t look right.

“It’s an interesting example of how AI can be used as a tool and not necessarily trample on the art that the rest of the industry is doing,” said MacFarlane in an Associated Press interview.

In the fashion world, brands are increasingly turning to AI-generated models.

In one example, a Guess advertisement campaign featured in an issue of Vogue magazine used a digital model that never ages. The fine print credited an AI marketing company.

The ad sparked backlash with some critics calling it misleading and out of touch.

“The fashion and the beauty industry, for me personally, it feels very dishonest to use avatars,” said Jason Mann, cofounder of STOCK, a growth marketing company. “You’re showing what can you do for these people, but you’re showing how it’s benefiting through an AI lens, not an actual human.”

As companies experiment with the technology, Mann believes audiences will respond differently depending on where the technology is used and whether they expect to see a real person. While it may work well in entertainment, the case may not be the same in industries where authenticity is a key part of the appeal.

In a survey Vogue conducted of its own readers, 51% said they would feel more negatively toward brands that use AI while making a luxury fashion or beauty product.

AI Avatars in College

The technology is also making its way into education. At the University of Virginia, students in a Learning Hub Program were taught effective study strategies in a remote research course led by an AI avatar rather than just reading text or working through online modules.

“I didn’t realize it was an AI avatar until I started playing the video,” student Juhee Lee said. “I think the avatar was pretty humanlike, but I could tell it was AI eventually.”

By using an AI avatar to deliver parts of the course online, the program was able to reach significantly more students. The class, which does not count toward academic credit but can fulfill a research requirement for foundational psychology courses, traditionally had space for about 40 students in person. With the addition of an avatar-led virtual version, another 80 spots were added.

“I thought it was a lot more engaging,” freshman Annabelle Bragdon said. “I also thought it was really helpful for learning, and I still use a lot of the techniques that they taught me in the course now.”

A Deeply Personal use in the Courtroom

In Arizona, the technology took on a far more emotional role.

After a road-rage shooting killed Chris Pelkey, his family created an AI-generated version of him to deliver a victim impact statement in court.

His sister, Stacey Wales, said she wanted to give him a voice.

“This whole trial is about him and because of him and for him. But what would he say? I know exactly what he would say,” Wales said.

Using photos, voice samples and words she believed he would say, a digital version of her brother spoke in court.

“I loved that AI. Thank you for that,” said the judge after watching the statement.

The AI video of her brother wrapped up nearly three hours of victim impact statements.

“I absolutely felt that we accomplished our mission and our goal, which was to humanize Chris and make him be viewed as a person that is no longer here but was here with his own thoughts, his own feeling,” Wales said.

A Rapidly Evolving Technology and Unanswered Questions

As AI avatars and digital humans appear in more settings, questions are growing about how and where they should be used and what may be lost along the way.

“It’s a blue ocean right now. We don’t know what’s going to happen, how things are going to play out, where people are going to resonate with in these type of mediums,” Mann said.

For those who follow the technology, just keeping up can be a challenge.

“Every semester we have to learn new stuff and come up-to-speed on new levels of technology that are coming out,” Maraffi said.

Wales believes the mixed reaction to AI avatars isn’t new and points to history as a guide. She compares today’s debate to the early days of photography more than 200 years ago, when some people embraced it, while others pushed back, calling it unnatural. Over time, she said, photography became part of everyday life.

“It did not usurp human connection. It enhanced it,” Wales said. “And I think AI is going to do the same thing in ways that we can’t even imagine.” 

This post was originally published in College of Design Blog.