Can K-Pop Make the Metaverse Cool?

Kakao Entertainment — an arm of Kakao, South Korea’s do-everything tech company — is billing Mave, its artificial band in progress, as the first K-pop group created entirely within the metaverse, using machine learning, deep fake, face swap and full 3-D production technology. To give them global appeal, the company wants the “girls” of Mave to eventually be able to converse in, say, Portuguese with a Brazilian fan and Mandarin with someone in Taiwan, fluently and convincingly.

The idea, said Kang Sung-ku, a technical director for the project, is that once such virtual beings can simulate meaningful conversations, “no real human will ever be lonely.”

Kakao’s singing show, “Girl’s Re:verse,” has a familiar reality-TV “survival” format: 30 singers, eliminated over time, until the last five standing form a band. But the contestants — all members of established K-pop bands or solo artists — compete, banter and hang out as avatars, in a virtual world called “W.” Their real identities are not revealed until they leave the show (in some cases, by way of the lava) or make it to the end.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/29/business/metaverse-k-pop-south-korea.html