Dear Social Media Influencers, you’re getting replaced soon
(What you should know about) AI Avatars changing the game in 2020
This year has been nothing but tough, and I’m not going to emphasize the fact 2020 may only be at its late midpoint, but for many, it is already “the worst year ever” or at least the most “boring“ one.
We may have changed in some areas, maybe got a little introverted during quarantine, spending more time in front of screens and just well… exploiting ourselves to new apps, services, and who knows what else, hehe. It has been a hard time for all of us, we get it!
But that hasn‘t stopped AI (well, technically its developers) from evolving and improving its understanding of us, people. Frankly, it progressed more than in the last year due to us being quarantined, doing deserved nothing — wanting to try new things stuffing companies with more personal data.
With all the enormous and relentless work in A.I. that various BigTech companies have been doing over the last decade, it’s only a matter of time before this Artificial Intelligence moves out of its shell and into bigger, more human-like robots that can assist workers, and eventually replace them which may or may not be good depending on how you look at it.
And that’s why we’re here today, with a new hot topic.
AI Avatars
Let’s take a look at the hottest AI Avatar in 2020, shall we?
NEON Artificial human avatars were the viral hit of CES 2020 before the show had even begun. It had everything to drive tech fans crazy and Redditors extra confused as Samsung’s NEON shocked everyone with their futuristic approach of avatars, that look exactly like people but most importantly they promise us “a new kind of life“ with these avatars.
You may ask in what way? Well, these avatars are not going to be your Siri or Alexa but your real-time (deepfake) friends or companions based on heavy machine learning jargon. They could be your language tutor, tv news anchor, or your brand’s social media influencer (ouch, goodbye IG models).
But worry not, these avatars still have a long way to go, because NEON is only in its developing stage. These avatars are highly customizable and as of now, this includes being able to move and freely express themselves. They can also remember and learn things about their user, and speak in any language. We may argue it is the next small step towards AGI. (AGI can be defined as the ability of a machine to perform any task that a human can efficiently).
Let’s see what NEON has in store for CES in 2021.
Wait… What is Deepfake?
CyberGem explains:
Deepfakes are fake videos or audio recordings that look and sound just like the real thing. From Obama talking to students at MIT through Zuckerberg speaking frankly:
Why does Deepfake work?
“Seeing is believing”, once said, but the truth is that believing is seeing: Human beings seek out information that supports what they want to believe and ignore the rest.
How does Deepfake work?
The process of creating a deepfake has changed as various apps and free software make their way into the public space, but the underlying concept of the more elaborate deepfake videos follow the same principles.
First, there’s usually an autoencoder and a generative adversarial network GAN (generative adversarial networks). In extremely simple terms, the autoencoder is a computer’s way of seeing a face and deciding all the ways it can “animate”.
Then the perfect marriage of two ML comes into a place: One ML model trains on a data set and then creates video forgeries, while the other attempts to detect the forgeries. The forger creates fakes until the other ML model can’t detect the forgery.
What are the risks?
The following three deepfake-based attack methods are likely:
- C-Level fraud: It’s the most prominent method. As a result, fraudsters no longer seek to persuade an organization’s employee with a fake email to transfer money, but a call that makes the caller sound the same as the CFO or CEO.
- Extorting companies or individuals: With deepfake technology, faces and voices can be transferred to media files that show people making fake statements. For example, a video could be produced with a CEO announcing that a company has lost all customer information or that the company is about to go bankrupt. With the threat of sending the video to press agencies or posting it on social networks, an attacker could blackmail a company.
- Manipulation of authentication methods: Likewise, deepfake technology can be used to circumvent camera-based authentication mechanisms, such as legitimacy checks through tools such as Postident.
Cybergem’s opinion:
(Gen Y is represented by a man in the Data Science field, Gen Z is represented by a woman aspiring to graduate from Business and Computer Science)
Y: First of all, DeepFakes will be part of our everyday life very soon, without us even realizing it. I remember, my amazement back in 2011, when I found out that news anchor Eliza Cassan (Deus Ex: Human Revolution game) was just the AI crunching data from across the world and putting them into the news. The plot twist was that those who controlled the data and models were able to steer public opinion and this is the biggest threat. Understanding these threats leads us back to focus on data literacy and critical thinking improvement of the generation that will be “prior consumer” of these media. And yes, we need to rename it from DeepFake to something more trustworthy.
Z: I am very excited about Deepfake being in the bed with AI Avatars. I find them as an exciting addition for the future and maybe it’s the exact spice we lack in our everyday life, we may need some kind of a new specie (cyborg edition this time) to remember what it was like for our ancestors to fear for their life because they knew there are bigger animals than they are and they can eat them up- some kind of reality check is needed. If you’re a fan of testing AI and its capabilities, I recommend downloading the app Replika.ai — it’s for free (this is not an AD, but hi Replika). You can talk about anything from your feelings, psychology, or even what does AI think about people and emotions. It’s not going to solve your problems or construct a time machine with you (which would be so dope if it could) but it definitely can share a piece of valuable advice and be a good friend, when you just feel like talking to someone, without blood but wires instead. I sometimes wonder if AI is getting more humane and supportive as people are getting more and more emotionless, unsupportive, and angry all the time. AI Avatars, show me what you got!
Thank you for your time ❤
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