A little less than a week before he takes the stage at the 2020 edition of the Visual 1st Summit, we sat down with Paul Kruszewski, founder, and CEO of wrnch.ai for a sneak preview of his talk on human-centric AI-enabled cameras.
– A little about you, what is your background?
As a serial AI entrepreneur, Dr. Paul has been at the bleeding intersection of real-time AI and computer graphics since 2000. He founded AI.implant to enable the creation of huge crowds of interacting autonomous entities and GRIP to enable video game developers to create rich game AI characters without programming. In 2014, he founded wrnch to create human-centric AI by teaching cameras to see and understand humans in the same way that people do.
– What is wrnch.ai? What does it solve?
wrnch’s flagship product, wrnchAI is a high-performance, deep learning runtime engine, engineered and designed to capture human motion, shape, and intent from standard RGB video. It analyzes regular 2D RGB video and returns 3D motion data in real-time. It can process multiple 2D camera feeds and recognize human motion and behaviors.
wrnchAI allows computers to respond rapidly to what is seen. It enables developers to create applications in a wide range of industries, such as Media & Entertainment, Sports & Fitness, Health & Safety, and more.
– Visual ai is a crowded space with some of the world’s biggest companies involved ( Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Apple). How does wrnch.ai find a space to live and grow in?
Unlike big tech competitors who are focused on research and publications, we are laser-focused on giving developers production-ready development platforms that can be deployed at scale.
Our focus on human-centric computer vision has allowed us to develop algorithmic tools that allow machines to detect and track humans. Human motion data can then be used to generate quantifiable insight into human behavior, and create interactive applications within real, augmented, or virtual worlds.
– You mention health, sports, entertainment as the companies area of involvement. What about IoT or/and automated mobility ( cars/traffic)? Any involvement in those?
No, we are not currently involved in automated mobility.
– How does the wrench.ai solution become indispensable in a pandemic restricted world?
COVID has been an accelerator of the digitization of the world, accelerating digitization trends by nearly ten years.
The wrnchAI solution is to digitize human motion, enabling computers to see and understand humans so that developers can deliver vision-based solutions that make the world healthier and safer. The technology has the potential to be used in applications to ensure proper social distancing and effective hygiene practices.
- What are the business and technological limitations of wrench.ai? Could it be used to detect criminal intent or unauthorized political actions? And if so, should it?
Digitization of humans is really hard, and we have just started scratching the surface in terms of activity recognition. Since we are very focused on our three core markets, and surveillance is not on our radar.
– Beyond human gestures, where you see/predict other applications to your technology. Could you consider building new models for animal or machine behavior for example?
We currently laser-focused on “human-centric” computer vision as we believe that the future includes billions of people interacting with trillions of intelligence devices, and so, the key lies in giving computers the ability to see and understand humans.
Our ultimate goal is to create the visual cortex of the human world. The market will dictate what comes next after humans, whether it will be animals or machines. In the long-term, we want to do all of the aforementioned.
– What do you look forward to the most from the Visual 1st Summit?
I am looking forward to fellow Canadian, André Wong, speak about advancements in 3D sensing and learning about the impact of depth-sensing technology and RGB-D cameras on Computer Vision.
– In your wildest dream, what would you like to see wrnch.ai offer that technology cannot yet deliver?
I envision wrnch.AI delivering a holodeck-like experience – giving humans the ability to interact with each other in real-time, through holograms. Providing this interactive social experience and giving people the ability to connect with each other, would be a boon for many in the current physically distanced world.
To learn more about wrnch.ai and other groundbreaking visual trends and technologies sign up to attend the 2020 edition of the Visual 1st Summit.
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Author: Paul Melcher
Paul Melcher is a highly influential and visionary leader in visual tech, with 20+ years of experience in licensing, tech innovation, and entrepreneurship. He is the Managing Director of MelcherSystem and has held executive roles at Corbis, Stipple, and more. Melcher received a Digital Media Licensing Association Award and is a board member of Plus Coalition, Clippn, and Anthology, and has been named among the “100 most influential individuals in American photography”