AI Clones
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Happy Friday, folks,
Next week is THAT week. That week, where we will meet in Amsterdam at the HR Technology Europe Conference.
With everything going on in the AI and HR space, this is an event that you shouldn’t miss. The lineup looks amazing.
I have a couple of free (!) tickets to hand out.
Want one?
Send me an email, but hurry before they are gone!
Now on to the update.
A week ago, Microsoft released its version: "Upload an image, and we'll convert it to a video." They call the model Vasa-1.
It's not yet available to the public, but by the looks of it, it's somewhat scary. It immediately got me into the track of, once again, trying to create a clone of myself.
That knows my knowledge and can answer questions about HR and perhaps even more specific questions around AI and HR.
After all, I've generated a bunch of content that it can train on to give relevant answers and train of thoughts that should resemble me. The main ambition was to combine ChatGPT, Sana, Slack, Hume, and now Microsoft Vasa-1 / similar video tools.
But time is always a scarce resource, and I wasn't even half-way there until Reid Hoffman dropped the video below.
You don't have to watch the full video if you don't want to, but watch a couple of minutes at least.
Is it spotless? No!
Is it good enough? I certainly think so.
And yes, we don't exactly know how this was done; it could have been edited together, the bot could be lagging, and it might have been the 23rd take that got the answer right, and the 22 before was just bad. But still.
It alludes to a future where generative video plays a role in society and perhaps more prominently in our organizations. I said this before in this newsletter, but I'll say it again: For many low-cognitive tasks, such as answering basic questions with low complexity, why would anyone NOT want to use a bot version of themselves for that?
One that speaks 170 languages is always available, never sick, and always optimistic and friendly.
Why would an employee not want to talk to a bot that is that way?
Who is accessible.
Who knows all the ins and outs of the latest policies and laws.
Who gives a straight answer at all times, whenever you need it.
This is the path we are on now. As I said, I've talked about it in the past, which was a mere six months ago.
At that time, the videos were wonky and clunky, far from what we see in the Vasa-1 demo and Reid's video.
One can only guess what will happen in the next 6-18 months, but this will get better and better.
That we can be pretty certain about. So what can we in HR do?
It's kind of easy to panic a bit.
Or to feel that, hey, this is moving too fast.
I have the same feeling.
But then I'll take a deep breath and think for myself that if we continue to be curious, continue to learn about AI, and explore Copilot or ChatGPT, we will be somewhat prepared for when we can clone ourselves.
Because then we understand the ins and outs, the benefits and pitfalls of generative AI. The underlying technology is still the same in these video models; it's just the interface with us, the humans, that is different.
So, keep calm and keep using ChatGPT.
We'll figure this out as well.
(But I really want an AI bot of myself soon.)
Great piece Johannes! Yes the AI clones are indeed coming, and are already here!
I actually predict that this upcoming US presidential election is accelerating this technology especially the malicious side of it. Not sure if you or your readers recall a story from a couple months back where an AI generated clone of a company CFO instructed his finance manager to transfer $20m to a compromised bank account. The finance manager thought they were on a zoom call with the actual CFO, so the fact that it's already that good is kind of wild/scary.
I think this malicious side of the technology will actually drive a lot of businesses back into the office, as the only way to fully ensure you're speaking to who you think you are will be to do it in person. Probably a cyclical return to commercial office space that plays out over the next 5 years.