Animator Nikita Diakur thought it would be safer to have a digital stand-in do a backflip after he failed to do a backflip in real life. Maximilian Schneider helped him use machine learning tech to create a photorealistic avatar of himself, use a voice simulator trained for 15 minutes on his actual voice, wire the voice to the mesh on his face, and a few other techniques from the paper Deep Mimic. He then tried to train the avatar.

It’s an interesting way to tell a story – especially when he puts the avatar into his tiny apartment and proceeds to virtually receive what would be numerous serious head traumas, bone breaking collisions, and likely tons of broken furniture.