Lego Turns Theme Park Guests Into Toys with AI

Lego is opening a new theme park in upstate New York that will feature a ride that uses artificial intelligence, motion tracking, and neural network technologies to render guests as Lego figurines in real time.

The Legoland New York Resort, which will be located in Goshen, New York, about 60 miles northwest of Manhattan, will feature a Lego Factory Adventure Ride that takes park guests through a tour of a “factory” showing them how the iconic little plastic bricks are made.

The trackless dark ride experience — meaning that though guests are strapped into a vehicle, the vehicle itself isn’t tethered to a track — is developed by Holovis, an experiential design company, and ETF Ride Systems, a theme park ride developer.

Using Holovis’ Holotrack technology, the Lego Factory Adventure Ride will feature a segment where park guests are turned into one of Lego’s iconic miniature figures. Holotrack leverages the use of the same artificial intelligence and deep learning technologies that have made deepfake videos possible, taking an individual’s image and translating it onto a screen. The guest’s mini-figures will mimic their movements and appearance, copying their hair, glasses, clothing and facial expressions. The time it takes to render a guest into a Lego figure is reported to be about half a second.

Though further details of the features of the ride have yet to be released, it appears as though the custom-rendered Lego figure feature will only be for a portion of the ride, with guests moving on to another part of the “factory tour” once it is over.

The Lego Resort New York is scheduled to open on July 4th of next year, and will be one of the largest Legoland theme parks in the world when it does.

Source: Gizmodo