DALLAS — Since Mavs All-Star Luka Doncic first joined the Dallas Mavericks, he has found different ways to utilize social media and connect to fans.
Well, now he's taking a new, slightly creepy but fascinating approach.
On Thursday, the Mavs star officially handed over control of his TikTok account to Luk.AI, a digital metahuman that will be able to interact with fans and other people on the social media app.
In a TikTok video posted from Doncic's account Thursday, part of the process is shown as to how the metahuman is made to look so much like the three-time All-NBA First Team superstar.
This new technology was announced by Epic Games in February, calling it a browser-based software tool powered by its Unreal Engine 5, "MetaHuman Creator."
They later said in June that an updated version was available that "empowers anyone to create photorealistic digital humans, complete with hair and clothing, in minutes—but also an exciting new Mesh to MetaHuman feature in Unreal Engine, as well as support for the new character rigging, animation, and physics features in UE5."
Luka's new metahuman character will be placed primarily on TikTok. The artificial intelligence will be augmented with neural network technologies and learn new behaviors in real-time and interact with other users.
This metahuman will theoretically explore and build on Doncic's off-court interests as well. His interaction with fans will also work to build his behaviors and personality.
Epic said Luka.AI will be expected to become smarter through these interactions on the TikTok community.
In the first video posted Thursday, Doncic is dressed in a Jumpman Flight Suit from Nike's Jordan Brand and is wearing Doncic's Luka 1 shoes.
The Mavs All-Star is the first athlete to officially have his own metahuman.