Samsung will unveil Neon, an 'artificial human,' at CES 2020

According to a relatively new Twitter account for a project from Samsung called Neon, an “artificial human” will be unveiled at CES 2020. According to the Samsung Neon website, the reveal will happen on Tuesday, January 7, 2019, at 3:00 AM ET (h/t Korea Herald).

Although the Samsung Neon website and its related social media accounts are vague on details, there are a few things for certain. First, Neon is definitively not a next-step for Bixby, Samsung’s AI assistant that competes with Google Assistant, Siri, and Alexa. Neon makes that very clear in this tweet.

Second, the official description of Neon is “artificial human,” as confirmed by the image above as well as this tweet.

Finally, Samsung Neon will apparently be able to communicate in multiple languages, as there are promotional images littering the Neon Twitter account in English, Chinese, Spanish, and more.

Related: CES 2020: What to expect from the Las Vegas trade show

So what is Neon, exactly? That isn’t totally clear yet, but our guess is that it will be a software-based artificial intelligence that will appear human in both its image and communication. The promotional images on the Neon Twitter account show (presumably) fake humans from various ethnicities, suggesting the AI — or AH if you want to jump on ship with Samsung — can be pretty much whatever the user wants it to be.

We expect that Neon will be a demo of how Samsung can create a non-human entity that you can freely communicate with using natural conversation. Since there will likely be a visual element as well, communication won’t be limited to language — you’ll be able to read the emotional state of the AI through its facial expressions.

It doesn’t appear that Samsung Neon will be showing off an actual, physical robot. Neon will very likely be limited to a screen of some sort.

What do you think? Let us know your Neon theories in the comments!