Digital humans, AI-powered Digital counterparts, are going to change how we interact with the world around us.Miquela, a digital human and famous influencerIn 2016 Miquela Sousa, or @lilmiquela, quickly grew to be one of Instagram’s top influencers. At a first glance, there is little wrong with the 19-year-old Brazilian-American model. She enjoys life with friends, goes on fancy holidays and speaks about her skin-care routine.Digital Human, Model and Influencer Miquela Sousa. From Instagram @lilmiquelaBut once we look closer she does not fully look like us. She is a digital human, an AI-powered avatar that functions independently; She is not real. Miquela created a lot of backlash. Hundreds of others would have loved to have that job, but now they are giving it away to a computer.It reminds me vaguely of the Black Mirror episode ‘Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too’. In that episode a digital twin of a famous pop artist decides to go in a creative direction, completely overshadowing her human counterpart. This fictional story is an illustration of how AI can turn rogue and create undesired situations.Virtual rapper FN Meka dropped from Capitol RecordsLast month such a story became reality, when digital human and rapper FN Meka became a hit on youtube. The rapper quickly gathered 1 billion views with his songs and became the first signed digital rapper at Capital Records.But the rapper was dropped from the label amid growing backlash over racial stereotypes, including use of the N-word and an Instagram post of the rapper being beaten by a police officer in prison.Capitol Records then severed its ties with the digital human and released a statement:“We offer our deepest apologies to the Black community for our insensitivity in signing this project without asking enough questions about equity and the creative process behind it,” the statement read. “We thank those who have reached out to us with constructive feedback in the past couple of days — your input was invaluable as we came to the decision to end our association with the project.”While we do have a certain influence over digital humans, they have a mind on their own. Undesirable situations are inherent to the uncontrolled nature of digital humans. But we could also see digital humans being used for the better. Digital humans could revolutionize entire industries.Replika’s digital friend trying to help against depression and anxietyReplika’s digital friend helps anyone to handle their emotionsReplika is an example of a piece of software that might help us down the line. The company has engineered an ‘AI friend’ that aims to make people feel better. The goal of this AI friend is help against depression and anxiety.Replika is a digital version of a pen pall. So far, the company has 10 million registered users and claims that “more than 85% of conversations make people feel better.”Negobot at work, pretending to be a gullible young girl, from New AtlasAnother experiment was engineered in Spain in 2013. A virtual chat agent named Negobot, referred to as Lolita, posed to be a young female to track potential sexual predators online.Lolita turned out to be quite successful. The virtual agent was able to mimic subtle human movements to such an extend that the project identified over 1000 possible sexual predators.  » Read More

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