Nvidia’s eye-contact AI is its creepiest update yet

Nvidia released the most bizarre AI-powered software it has ever made. A new camera feature added in a recent update to the Nvidia Broadcast app edits a live feed so that it looks like someone is always looking into the camera, even if that’s not the case. It’s an unsettling feature that had me shouting and screaming the first time I saw it in real time.

Eye Contact was launched earlier this month in Nvidia Broadcast’s patch 1.4. The software improves the quality of livestreaming video and videoconferencing. Nvidia said in a blog post that Eye Contact is intended for content creators who want to maintain eye contact with the camera at all times, even if they’re, say, looking at notes or a script off screen. Now that it’s been out for a few weeks, we have a better idea of what it can do.

This is a demo that shows the features in action. posted on TwitterScenes can be viewed from Jurassic ParkEye Contact was used to edit the footage so the actors were always looking at the camera. It’s weird and off-putting! Probably even if you’ve never seen the movie before! It’s like the person was so preoccupied with whether or not they Could do this that they didn’t stop to think if they Should…

Eye Contact was in full swing when I joined the video conference with a Polygon colleague. Although I was just looking at my coworker, the experience felt eerily familiar. I think it’s partly because completely uninterrupted eye contact doesn’t feel natural or normal if you’re having a casual conversation. Also, the software isn’t perfect — Nvidia says it’s in the beta stage — so at points he would turn his head and look to the side, and his eyes would snap back to staring directly at the camera; it sort of looked like he was a possessed character from a horror movie.

Another example of AI being easily accessible by ordinary consumers is the Eye Contact feature. ChatGPT is a natural-language application that can be used to write essays and many other applications. It became an instant hit. Other software like DALL-E, Midjourney, and Free AI Art Generator is being used to create memes and recreate the look of certain directors’ films.

If you, too, would like to use this AI black magic, all you need to do is download Nvidia Broadcast — although your computer will need certain hardware for it to work, including an Nvidia GeForce RTX graphics card; you can view the full system requirements here.