How Hyperreal CEO Remington Scott Is Giving the Metaverse a Soul

thewrap.com:

pop star Madison Beer (for a performance that won a Webby for Tech Achievement); made Paul McCartney resemble a Beatles-era version of himself; designed a virtual model of the late rapper The Notorious B.I.G.; and, with entertainment mogul Simon Fuller and Verizon, invented an AI-driven alien pop princess named Alta B who appeared with the boy band Now United in their “Jump” video. (With 60 million views, “Jump” is the most-watched video featuring a virtual being.) Signaling confidence in Hyperreal’s continued growth, the Korean giant CJ ENM took a minority stake in Hyperreal in April.

The fact that the digital versions of real, flesh-and-blood humans are owned by their real, flesh-and-blood human selves (or their estate) means that they can one day bring those models into other virtual spaces in the metaverse — a critical component to Web3 and the metaverse.

Commenting on his strategy for sustaining his company’s growth, Scott emphasized the very thing that makes the Hypermodels so lifelike: human individuality. “There’s playbooks, and a lot of people write about how to do business or write about how to make things,” Scott told TheWrap. “It’s great to listen to those things.

But none of them replace what makes you unique and how you are driving forward your vision. You have to embrace that and move forward with that.”Scott, a veteran of computer graphic design in the video game world who supervised the motion-capture work of Gollum on “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,” declined to share details about Hyperreal’s future work with other A-list stars.