Nadia is a one-of-a-kind chatbot. Eerily human-looking, capable of reading moods like only a best friend could, it’s meant to be the help people with disabilities really need. This mission is the main reason actress Cate Blanchett decided to lend her voice to the avatar #machinemagic
Nadia is the brainchild of Mark Sagar and his New Zealand startup, Soul Machines. As the name suggests, the robots coming to life from their factory have a certain je ne sais quoi. Even though you know they can’t have a soul, their mimic, questions and answers make them very relatable. This can take you aback at first, until you remember Sagar is well-known for his mastery of facial motion capture techniques. He was the one to humanize the creatures from Avatar and King Kong.
Now, Sagar is putting his skills to good use for NDIS, Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme. Nadia is the interface between users and the public service, developed with IBM Watson’s artificial intelligence tech and FaceMe, a real-time video communication company.
Soul Machines enabled this virtual chatbot to read human emotions, the moment a webcam is open and a face is detected. Depending on the mood perceived, Nadia can adjust her answers. The company gave it its own version of a central nervous system that imitates the capabilities of the human brain.
“The core theory behind our technology is our faces are the mirror image of our brain. You can’t create a realistic face without creating models of the human brain as well,” Cross says. “Our avatars also have a breathing model because when we speak as human beings, we have to manage our sentences based on when we have to take a breath, so our tone of voice or expression on our face may change slightly.”
She functions like an AI, improving her people skills in time by learning with each new experience. In fact, her makers call her an EI – emotional intelligence. People with disabilities depend on her to understand all the steps in order to get the information needed.
Check the bot’s interactions below, in the voice of Cate Blanchett:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq_0KeV4fFA
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