Are you sure those faces across the screen in your video conference or virtual meetings are really those of your colleagues, family, or friends? Perhaps, you may want to scrutinize those faces thoroughly in your next virtual meeting. For all you care, the faces and voices may just be cloned versions of the real people that you know. Yes, artificial intelligence-cloned versions. Surprised? You needn’t be.
AI’s almost perfect virtual human clone
Every day, we experience AI’s mind-boggling possibilities and applications that we find almost impossible to believe. AI’s possibilities are so immense that it is conceivable that we have merely scratched its surface. For instance, Google’s AutoML is touted to be exploring the possibility of creating machine learning models that can “self-replicate”; that is, a machine that can create a version of itself. Generative AI has unlocked newer AI applications, including AI face and voice cloning. So, AI can be used to clone me, Afolabi Abiodun, body, face, voice, and mannerisms and an unsuspecting individual will hold a virtual meeting with the clone believing he had a meeting with me.
That possibility was put to the test recently at the British Broadcasting Corporation. Engineers at Fraia AI worked with BBC’s Cyber correspondent Joe Tidy to build his clone, and the clone was put in a virtual meeting with Tidy’s colleagues. It was interesting to see how strikingly Tidy-like the clone was. Tidy’s colleagues were able to detect it was a clone, though. However, as the technology evolves an AI clone may become difficult to spot.
The fake it till you make it online world
The internet and the online world are full of pretensions, posturing, and make-believe. We see individuals on social media projecting fake personas, filtering the real them until the fake glossy and successful one appears. Even organisations have joined the filtering frenzy through activities such as fake job posts called ghost jobs to paint a picture of growth and expansion, a picture of industry relevance that belies their true state. AI, with its vast use case application, is set to enhance that predilection by netizens to project the unreal while deceiving the unsuspecting online crowd. We are already seeing glimpses of that possibility and it is increasingly difficult to separate the fake from the real. The 17th Century French philosopher, René Descartes and his Cartesian doubt theory would have found empirical connections to today’s AI and digital world where deepfakes, CEO Fraud, and Ghost Jobs are beginning to confuse even the most phlegmatic and will make you doubt or question ideas, beliefs, and thoughts.
Real-life cloning versus virtual cloning
Cloning has always been a human preoccupation. Human cloning, the creation of a genetically identical copy of a human artificially, has long been the preoccupation of embryologists, geneticists, developmental biologists, and religious institutions. Scientists have explored the possibility of human cloning and its larger application in the treatment of life-threatening diseases. At the same time, religious institutions and moralists have been strident in their condemnation as they view human cloning as unethical, a usurpation of the creation order and God’s grand plans for humans. The voices against human cloning seemed to have prevailed, at least for now, as there have been no reported cases of cloned humans.
The preoccupation with human cloning has now moved online with AI leading the virtual cloning charge. And like the real-life cloning efforts, AI cloning is raising some serious ethical questions. While AI-driven virtual human cloning could offer significant medical, scientific, and practical benefits, ethical considerations remain imperative due to its possible manipulation by shady characters.
Read also: AI experts advocate balancing innovation, regulations to enhance data efficiency
AI cloning real-world use case
It would be interesting though to see how individuals and organisations deploy AI cloning. Digital avatars capable of performing human tasks will be most visible in the customer service sector. The clones will be quite intuitive and relatable as they replicate human speech patterns and habits while delivering natural and empathetic engagements and at the same time solving complex challenges. The era of human customer service agents may be on its last leg with AI clones in town. AI cloning has created the possibility for an individual to be in several locations at once engaging in intuitive and relatable activities in those locations. This will be particularly useful for the entertainment industry. Digital human clones of musicians can be developed for concerts or holographic performances in several locations. So, for instance, a Davido, Burna Boy, or Simi could be performing at London O2 Arena, Madison Square Garden in New York, Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, Atlas Electronic in Morocco, and the Abuja Stadium simultaneously as well as interacting with the audiences in these places intuitively.
Ethical considerations and regulatory response
Apart from the cybersecurity considerations of AI cloning where questionable individuals and organisations could deploy virtual clones for identity and financial theft, scams, and other unwholesome activities, there are other ethical considerations that must be quickly addressed. For instance, who manages the digital rights to a clone? In the Tidy case, for instance, who has the right to his clone? Fraia AI or Tidy himself? When it comes to monetisation if a musician or an actor were cloned and the clone used in movies or concerts, who owns the commercial success? Regulators need to be busy right now conceiving and developing guidelines to address this. Privacy and consent concerns will be another critical area regulators must urgently address. Using AI to clone an individual without the person’s approval throws up identity theft and digital rights issues.
A new wave of business opportunity
While AI cloning will jeopardise some jobs, it would certainly throw up opportunities for new ones. For instance, companies that desire to deploy AI clones for their operations must first decide the individual they would clone, an employee or a vendor. If it’s an employee then the individual’s consent must be sought and obtained and a set of legal documents clearly stating the dynamics of the arrangement would have to be drawn and approved by both parties. I see the birthing of a new industry of individuals willing to commercialise their faces and voices and sell to the highest bidders who may be willing to create AI clones that would be deployed in their operations.
Generative AI is set to completely transform our world the way we know it and will continue to drive change in the years to come. One only needs to see the frenzy and astonishing growth surrounding Nvidia, a company that makes AI chips, to understand the limitless potential generative AI represents. “The next industrial revolution has begun,” says Jensen Huang, Nvidia co-founder and CEO. Indeed, it has.
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