 So Neon caused a bit of a ruckus when they started teasing their artificial humans before CES. Like, first of all, what does that even mean? And second of all, why though? The hype built up to the point where some Redditors felt the need to scrape the company's website and they ended up finding out that what Neon was working on was not Blade Runner style replicants, but something more like AIs with realistic looking avatars. It was a slightly disappointing revelation to anyone who somehow thought we had reached Blade Runner levels of tech already, but after seeing for myself what Neons actually are, I think there's some interesting potential here, so I'm gonna talk about it. But first, I'm gonna talk about our sponsor. Our CES 2020 coverage is powered by Pulseway, the software that lets you do work without you being at work. Insane. Create your free account today and save 20% on their team's plan at the link below. So when Neon actually pulled back the curtain themselves, it turned out that the leaks were pretty accurate. These Neons were definitely not artificial humans, but they're also not quite digital assistants in the same vein as Google Assistant, Siri, or Alexa. Neon says that they're not an interface to the internet, so if you try asking them what the weather will be like tomorrow, they may just tell you to Google it yourself like your buddy would, because Neons will supposedly have personality and even names like Frank, Hannah, Natasha. I'm assuming there's got to be a Ronald in there. So personally, the main thing that drew me to this and the largest bit of clickbait Neon is actually guilty of is the visual component here. Neon's teasers made it seem like what we were looking at were AI-generated images of people, not just videos of actors, but that's what they are. That's not an AI, that's just a guy. The people I talked to here at Neon didn't want to say that. They referred to them as the raw visual data the AI is trained on, but yeah, they're videos of actors. I don't know why they seemed hesitant to say that though, because even with that knowledge, the concept here is still pretty interesting. I mean, sure, yeah, Neons are essentially just chat bots given a virtual physical manifestation, but they're not just updated versions of Smarter Child to entertain bored teenagers on MSN Messenger, and I'm sure I just aged myself with that reference. Neon sees their constructs eventually being deployed in customer service roles like hotel desks and airport kiosks. Instead of checking into your flight using that ancient looking touch screen, you could talk to Angela. She's great. Down the line, Neons could also be used in more casual scenarios, like as a combination digital assistant and talking companion for seniors. Now, if you think the idea of interacting with AIs in service environments is weird, sorry to tell you, it's already happening. There are a growing number of hotels and airports, especially in Asia, that are starting to use robots to check people in and even provide room service. Neon would simply be putting a human face on these surfaces so that interactions can be more natural. Sure, it'll look like a horrifying black mirror-esque nightmare at first, but soon we won't even realize that they've started to consume our body parts to construct cyborg bodies for themselves. I gotta say though, in the demo they put on for us, what I saw of the Neons capabilities was less than reassuring. What they're doing is essentially real-time customizable deepfakery, taking the likenesses of paid actors and manipulating it with software. We saw a technician move a Neon's head from side to side, make various facial expressions, and even tweak tiny details like moving their eyebrows up and down. Now, this scenario involves a human manipulating a Neon, but when they're not being actively controlled, AI allows the Neon to move between thousands of recorded states, resulting in something that sometimes does, and most of the time doesn't right now, look natural. When the Neon speaks, its mouth forms the words it's saying, although it definitely looked better speaking English than Mandarin. Their capabilities are pretty rudimentary right now, but Neon says that over time, they'll get smarter. But Riley, I hear you ask, remember Microsoft's chatbot that learned how to talk by interacting with randos on Twitter? It got racist real fast. How do we know that these Neons won't join the KKK first chance they get? I was wondering the same thing. So I asked Neon about it, and they said that once they're deployed, Neons will essentially forget every interaction they have as soon as it's over. So when you go to speak to one, it won't call you a racial slur, because the guy in front of you fancied himself king of all the edgelords. Now, the other problem here is that airport kiosks can basically run on a potato, and Neons need powerful hardware. I was told that each of these demos is running on a PC tower with multiple GPUs, although they wouldn't specify the exact specs. Well, don't worry, Neon sees their AIs running in the cloud where they can deploy their futuristic spectra technology and core R3, which stands for reality real time responsive. Yeah, clearly those are just mysterious buzzwords meant to make it sound like Neon isn't just vaporware. But I still think there's some potential here. For sure. This seems like basically just a concept right now, and they definitely overhyped the crap out of this. But it's got me interested enough to want to see what they come back with next year. Speaking of... hold on, I'm being remote controlled by Linus. Okay, now go left, straight, yep. Get me an order from in and out. Actually, scratch that. It'll probably be disgusting by the time you get back. That's right, friends, Pulseway is the remote monitoring and management software that helps you fix problems on the go by sending commands from any mobile device. And unfortunately, that bit at the beginning, that was a joke. You can't actually control people, but you can control your Windows, Linux, and Mac systems all remotely from a single app. You can deploy custom scripts to automate your tasks, and all of it means that you can spend less time working. So try Pulseway today for free and save 20% when you sign up for their Teams plan at the link in the video description. Take the video back over again. I'm done now. Thanks. Well, that was it, guys. Thanks for watching. See you next time. I think this might be the last CES video. So stay tuned for your regularly scheduled Linus Tech Tips content. Love you.