The Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology is embarking on an exciting experiment − the Kapitsa.AI media project. Over the course of six months, the project team will create a digital twin of Sergey Kapitsa, a renowned Russian physicist and science popularizer. Creating a digital twin is a challenging engineering task that involves finding AI solutions for the avatar, synchronizing and optimizing them for the project. The development process will be documented on the project’s pages on Telegram and VK. The project was supported by a grant from the Russian Ministry of Science and Higher Education. Skoltech will invite employees and experts from the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (AIRI) and the Institute of Artificial Intelligence at Samara National Research University to join the project team.

“From a layman’s point of view, AI technology helps solve a task in a few clicks, while a human would spend days struggling with it. AI appears to be simple, accessible and lightning-fast, but behind its apparent simplicity and speed lie hundreds of hours of searching for the right technical solution,” Skoltech president Alexander Kuleshov commented. “Skoltech has a wide range of expertise in developing AI solutions for various applications − from medicine to predicting wildfires and ice conditions on the Northern Sea Route. With this project, we want to follow the thorny path towards a new multicomponent AI product, such as a digital twin, and show the process in its true colors, like a documentary filmmaker would do. This experiment will be documented in real time. If all goes as planned, we will set up an installation with Sergey Kapitsa’s digital twin at Skoltech for our guests, students and employees to communicate with the great scientist.”

The digital avatar will incorporate many different AI solutions. Some will generate images, others will synthesize speech, others will mimic emotions, body movements and facial expressions, timbre and intonation, and still others will orchestrate it all. “Here we are going to solve an engineering problem using the best available technologies in the shortest possible time,” said professor Evgeny Burnaev, the project’s scientific supervisor and the director of Skoltech’s Applied AI Center. “Although you know how each technology works and what you can achieve with each of them, you have no idea what you will get in the end before you put them together, what with the poor quality of the original photos and videos. But in any case, the end result will be worth the effort: we will get objective evidence of how modern technology copes with this kind of application. That was my first point. Second, we will create a tangible product that we can use to show how modern technology works. And third, the twin will be a useful educational “test bed”, where students can see exactly what the technology is all about and hone their practical skills by working with different AI solutions and their combinations”.

The study of “gray zones” will be a special part of the project. Social sciences are struggling to keep up with the rapid advancement of AI technology, leading to controversial ethical issues, gaps in the legal framework, and even embarrassing situations. To avoid disagreements over ethical issues, the project team works in close contact with Sergey Kapitsa’s family. “My father would have loved this adventure,” said his daughter, Maria Kapitsa.