so how is all this going to transform our future reality and are we ready to fully merge ourselves with this new digital world? well, before the pandemic hit, i went to go find out what the digital humans of the future could soon be capable. hello i'm siren and i'm a digital human. is this the future, a world where hyper—realistic avatars do everything that humans can? america's tech community seems to think so. i think that if i could send my avatar off to have fun and party on my behalf, that would be a great thing. but in the virtual wild west, could women become nothing more than digital objects... i definitely want a better version of me. is that sort of unhealthy for people? ..whose beauty standards are designed by men sat behind a screen?

obviously my inspirations were quite unrealistic, you know? it's kind of like supermodels and barbie dolls. and who will control our avatars once we've gone? i just want to do what we started off doing and as much as that feels right. to find out i've made my own avatar and entered the dystopian world occupied by our digital twins. when most of us think of avatars, we imagine a tall blue movie when most of us think of avatars, we imagine a tall blue movie character, but today they're being used in a very different way. avatars can be the digital copy of a human and they're difficult to spot. from hollywood to the newsroom, avatars are going mainstream and our digital doubles could soon be working for us or maybe even replacing us.

back in 2019, i travelled to la where some of this futuristic technology is being built by women. but with big investment from the gaming, social media and porn industries, is it being built for women? to find out i'm going to need my own avatar. hello! this is luke from dna block, an avatar creation start—up. they've made digital copies of hundreds of celebrities and now it's my turn. how do i do that? the magic is behind here. so basically all these cameras, they're going to take a picture of you at exactly the same time and then we're going to use process called photogrammetry to reconstruct you. so so this is going to be 360 high—definition. these cameras are going to capture every angle of my body and face down to the smallest pore and the photos will then be processed to make an exact replica of me.

so what actually is an avatar? i think generally it's something that's like interactive or that's three—dimensional. so it's kind of like a digital puppet? yeah, i think that's a good way of explaining it. so you have a digital puppet of yourself. so this is how i'm going to live in the digital world. this is digital avatar emilia happening now. it is, yeah. ok, no pressure no pressure. don't mess it up. this new technology means emilia 2.0 can be puppeted in real—time across different platforms and by anyone without my input. while luke starts building my avatar, i'm going to meet christine misano, the co—founder of dna block, to see what i can do with my avatar and if she can earn me any money. christine is a former model. i think i've still got it, so i think i can probably win.

she's given up modelling so she can build her tech company but her avatar, christine 2.0, is still being hired to work the catwalk, modelling digital clothes forfashion brands. as you see, avatar christine does get it perfect every time. so you probably do want to hire her, but what's interesting about this particular version of her is that it's my body motion capture, so that is my walk, that is my stop and it is my turnaround so she really is sort of embodying me on the runway there. what else can i do with digital christine? well, there's a tonne of other uses for avatars. anything that you can really think of that a human can do digitally, you can replace with an avatar. she can speak a bunch of languages. she can speak asl without me ever having to spend a day learning it. sign language. hey, christine, i heard you know asl. can we see a little bit of the alphabet, please? i like to be nice to my own avatar. christine says the biggest growth

markets for these hyper—realistic avatars are fashion, advertising and digital assistants, but it's still early days for the technology. i really think that gen z and the younger generations, they're loving it and they're going to be the ones that decide how it works, what the winners are going to be and how much of a part of the future it's going to be. with such seemingly limitless opportunities, it's no surprise that everyone is trying to cash in on this technology, including bitcoin billionaire crystal rose pierce. i'm meeting her at rouge mocap where we're going to train our avatars to fight so they can be used in the gaming industry. there are 95 cameras around the room tracking our every move. it only takes two minutes to calibrate those motions to our avatars.

back at crystal's house, we test out our avatars. locate, download or kick. this is not looking good for avatar emilio. avatar crystal is the overall winner. crystal is so optimistic about the future of avatars that she's about to have an avatar wedding where her guests attend live via virtual reality headsets. i reallyjust want to explore all the worlds that are being created. i love the idea of my avatar being able to do fantasy things as well as real world normal things. being a ceo and a mother and an advisor and an investor, i have a lot of roles and i think that if i could send my avatar off to have fun and party on my behalf, that would be a great thing. even her 6—month—old daughter aurora has an avatar. is she the first ever baby avatar? i think so, i think she's the first one that's gotten fully scanned.

we'll see if she can be baby influencer. you know, any any movie or commercial or film that's using the babies or needs a baby for an avatar, having one already created out of a human likeness is a great thing and she's a perfect canvas, she can be turned into any colour hair, any colour eyes. are you worried that when she grows up she might not be happy with her image being used in a certain way or being a game character? we'll hope that she's happy with that. it's just like any child actor but at least this is this is a likeness rather than her actual self. crystal is confident that aurora's avatar is safe from hacking because she holds the key to its data through blockchain technology. if it were stored on a centralised database somewhere, and someone else owned it, and we just had the ability to use it, i'd be a little bit more worried about it. but the use of her daughter's image

without her express consent has made me think about who owns the rights to my digital self and who's regulating what these avatars can get up to online. many of the industries investing heavily in avatar technology are the ones already known for the commodification of women's bodies — fashion, gaming, porn. could turning women into digital objects that can be controlled by anyone and easily edited make that even worse? lil miquela is an instagram influencer. she's also an avatar and has 1.6 million followers. ——she's also an avatar and has 2.8 million followers. with so much marketing potential, brud, the company that created ,her is now worth at least $120 million. jennifer powell is a talent

agent who's just started to represent avatar influencers. i'm at her office to find out whether these idealised digital models are going to set unrealistic beauty standards for the rest of us. when you shoot campaigns as a real person, there's retouching and there's editing that happens so i feel like this is kind ofjust editing before you're actually putting her out there to work. do you feel like there are any ethical concerns around this? we're moving into the new wild west, i think, and i think that it's going to be up to us, the people that are at the forefront of doing this to create some standards and and hopefully rules and boundaries on so nobody does get hurt. is this the end ofjobs for models? i mean, models and influences are going to be working really differently now that they have an avatar. yes, i think that this is going to cutjobs but also create jobs. there are actual people behind avatars that are still being employed and being put to work — it's just a different type of person. but those types of people

are invariably men, men who are defining what these avatars look like. meet shudu — tall, dark—skinned, slim and the first avatar supermodel. she's been hired by vogue, cosmo mobile network provider ee and the fashion brands balmain and ellesse. and this is her creator, cameron—james wilson. what is shudu? shudu is...shudu is like a digital entity of her own. she's a character that i'm kind of developing the visual aspects for. i was really inspired by gaming, just before i created shudu. black desert has really, really in—depth character creation and it inspired me to want to kind of recreate these kind of really personal, really unique characters, but some of the things that inspire me, you know, often they are to sexualised. do you think it's going to be bad for people's body image,

comparing themselves to these perfect avatars like shudu? when i created shudu, obviously my inspirations were quite unrealistic. kind of like supermodels and barbie dolls, kind of dated concept of beauty ideals. which is why i then went on to create bren, another model, once i'd understood the impact these models could have, i thought it was really important to create. bren is a plus, a curve model, who has stretch marks, and has kind of natural imperfections that everyone has, and has a much more realistic body proportion. i guess my concern is that having these digital avatars is just going to reinforce these very male—centric standards of beauty. i think that's a really important point and i think that's why i really want to encourage women to get involved with this space. at the moment it is a very kind of male—dominated industry and i'm very aware of that, even as a guy myself, you know,

i walk into a room where we're talking about virtual influences, and it's 90% guys. i'm not the only one who shows these concerns about male—centric beauty standards. when shudu was first created, cameron received a lot of backlash for defining beauty in black women. and cashing in on that image. he has now employed a number of black models, like misty bailey, who have become the inspiration for shudu's walk, style and poses. ana badu, a formerjournalist, is helping to create shudu's back story, reclaiming the narrative for black women. it's like magazines and publications coming up and asking to interview shudu, and being virtual she doesn't actually have a voice, so i created a voice, i created that personality in her own words, and going forward we want to develop it further. a lot of black women were upset about the concept of shudu. how are you trying to change that? we've spoken extensively about the issues it has

for models in the industry, especially black female models. how do we then create an avatar that can impact this? how do we facilitate a larger conversation of making change and seeing diversity and inclusivity in the industry? i'm starting to see a future reality where the real emelia can be relaxing on a beach while emelia 2.0 works on tv, never ageing, never having a bad day, and never dying. so what happens to my avatar when i'm no longer around? so, i did a series of facial scans, 3d facial scans, that are going to be used in an innovative way. that are going to be used to him and don't animate my head.

so, this is molly, we scanned her head, 105 different times, with 105 different expressions. we have the eyes, and we start adding eyebrows, teeth, i know that it looks... really creepy! the process is really creepy. molly is the late wife of self—confessed avatar evangelist alex henry. as she battled terminal breast cancer she underwent 3d scanning so that her avatar could continue to explore the virtual world after her death. imean... how is this for you, looking at it? we went through this together. molly was part of this process, so we got to laugh about it together. it's definitely creepy as hell, but there is a compartmentalising. i've seen so much of this before, so that it'sjust a little business as usual. it was, you know, on one hand it was like a lark, let's do it, and it will be fun, and on the other hand, there was something sort of unspoken, but, like... you know, there's something serious there. this is something she had to live with, that we both had

to live with every single day, her mortality. do you think that stopped you grieving? no. i know that grief is such a difficult and complicated process, but... yeah, i think there are parts of this that has helped with the grieving. i don't think it's stopping the grieving process. i think that's going to happen no matter what. i'm not trying to be a black mirror episode. do i see myself, you know, hanging out with virtual molly? no. i don't need an avatar to do that. as an avatar developer, alex is using digital molly to showcase the potential of the technology. he says she won't be available to his clients, but he will continue to develop her character and may even incorporate artificial intelligence. i felt weirdly defensive of my avatar when i made it.

i sort of thought, this is really fun, i want to change this. but then the thought of somebody else changing it or using it in a way that i was not in control of felt quite... not violating, but it felt weird. yeah. i mean, there is a deep trust that molly and i had. did she leave kind of an avatar will, in a way? no. she didn't need to, i mean, there was a trust. we talked about it. i don't want to control molly in her afterlife. ijust want to do what we started off doing and as much as it feels, as much as that feels right. i know that she would be thrilled if her avatar became a pop star. thrilled. it seems to me, many of the pioneers in avatar technology are relying on their instincts because the legal

guidelines are still being established as different industries seek to capitalise on this technology, protecting our image will become increasingly important, especially if you are female. it has all made me feel a bit more nervous about the creation of my own avatar. i feel like i've just put my fingerprints on the internet, and now anyone can access them. before leaving la, i went back to dna block to see what christine is going to do with the avatar she has created for me. we think you should own it. it looks like you, it acts like you, it talks like you, it will be a digital representation of you, and that we are just there to license it out to anybody who wishes to use it, or whom you approve to use it. so how will we choose to use this technology going forward? and what role will digital humans be taking in our post—pandemic lives? one year on from my la trip, the technology is progressing at lightning speed, but many of my concerns are still the same.

i caught up with some of our contributors to find out what has been going on since we last spoke. do you think the pandemic has changed people's attitude to advertise? last year people thought of this as a very flimsy tech, fast forward a year, we really kind of see that, you know, people are kind of living more online, and there is a bigger need for content. a bad time for the world, but a good time for avatars. we did a tv show called the masked singer, a singing show here in the us, and they wanted to have avatars, augmented reality performers, so that they could basically shoot live on camera and the avatars would be automatically generated on top of that. but what we've really been focusing on is refining our products

so that we can do projects at scale. and have your thoughts and ambitions on digital humans changed at all? i hope we will be able to use them in a responsible manner. what we see now is that when you give creative people a tool, they want to make all sorts of stuff. there still aren't many rules and regulations about what you can and cannot do with digital avatars, or who benefits from your digital image. and what about my avatar, emelia 2.0? well, 2020 has been a very busy year for my digital twin. i've been featured in some video games and worked as a chatbot. i've walked the runway for new york and paris fashion week, modelling clothes. my avatar has also been signed up by a new start—up called hour 0ne to carry outjob interviews as an hr assistant. where do you see yourself in five years? while i did consent

to all of thesejobs, so far i haven't made any money. but with the pandemic confining us to our homes and computer screens, could these digital humans soon lose their novelty altogether? cameron james—wilson is already exploring new creative frontiers. do you think people want different things now? i would really love to see fashion brands experiment more with non—human characters, you know, things that are a little bit more different, out there. it's really inspired by my love for science fiction movies and comics. she's just kind of my little experiment, you know. for me, 3d models have always been about escapism, you know, this kind of fantasy world that i'm kind of creating. covid restrictions on global travel bands have not stopped cameron's portfolio of digital supermodels from booking jobs and travelling to exotic locations. we put together our own fashion show and we showed that at miami swim week.

so it's a really beautiful dreamlike location inspired by some of the most amazing faces. i would like to go. a lot of people were really amazed to see the potential of 3d fashion shows. they understand the designers may not have a choice but to use an avatar now, and that may be the best choice right now for them. but not all fashion designers were so quick to adjust. when the pandemic first hit, many were unprepared for the financial investment and time still needed to create higher quality avatars. i think the industry that has kind of benefited most from advertisers obviously the gaming industry. i mean, that is where avatars really live. the game with occasional fashion is something that is slowly happening, and i think 2021 is going to be a big yearforfashion and gaming to come together. you also have to realise that these

models can have an impact, it can be a very positive impact, it can be a negative impact, and you have to be super responsible. in addition to never overtake responsibility, and we have to be super careful when we are pioneering in this new industry. so, as avatar technology gets cheaper, faster and easier to use, keep a lookout for the next wave of post pandemic avatars. they could soon be appearing on a screen near you. well, it's quiet on the weather front, so not an awful lot of change on the way for tomorrow.

as far as the week is concerned, it is going to stay on the chilly side, but there are signs that as we head towards the end of the week, it's going to turn a little less cold. so this is the satellite picture. we are in between weather systems, you can see clouds out in the atlantic also in central parts of europe. we are in this sort of clearer slot here, so there has actually been some sunshine around, some of us have been stuck underneath the fog. but the cold air is with us, notjust across the uk but many parts of western and also central europe. so the pattern remains the same for tonight and into monday, clear skies, so frost forming here and there, and of course, you've got the fog in some areas as well where it's already lingered all through the day, all through sunday. city centre temperatures overnight falling to around freezing, outside of town, it will be around three degrees colder than that in rural spots. so the fog tomorrow in the south and southeast, but actually, for many of us, a lot of bright weather, certainly around the irish sea, belfast, glasgow, though western isles,

once again, some sunshine there. four, five, six degrees, then we're watching this weather front in the north sea. that's going to reach the north coast of england and also scotland through the evening. there will be a bit of mountain snow here, but notice that in the south of the country overnight into tuesday, it actually stays clear. so it's low pressure, it will anchor itself across scotland during the course of tuesday. so the weather is going to be unsettled here, often cloudy, not the sunshine that we've had in the last day or so. you can see the low, the winds spiralling around it, and also some very strong winds, possibly up to gale force around some of these coasts. to the south of that, the weather will be better, drier, brighter, less windy, it will feel more pleasant. but it's going to be fairly chilly, temperatures 4, 5, 6 degrees, wherever you are, really. just that little bit milder eight or 9 degrees. now, on wednesday, we are ahead of a weather system here, actually, it should be fairly quiet. not much happening on the weather front through the middle part of the week.

but towards the end of the week, there is just a hint that those temperatures will start to recover, so it's going to be a good deal milder, but you will notice it possibly up to around double figures on the south coast and in southwestern parts of the uk. that's it from me.

welcome to bbc news — i'm shaun ley. coming up in five minutes reeta chakrabati will be here with a bulletin of the day's news and at half past ten i'll be joined by my guests for a first look at monday's newspapers. but first, uk and eu negotiators are making a final push to try to break the deadlock in the brexit trade talks. discussions resumed in brussels with three outstanding issues — fishing quotas, fair competition rules and the enforcement