AI Avatars Escape the Uncanny Valley
a16z.com
a16z.com
We don't like to interact with people just because that's the only way we can interact but because humans are human. AI avatars are the exact opposite: a statement of disinterest. If you don't care enough about my business to be on a sales call with me, why would I bother speaking to an AI avatar you send in your place? What's a thank you message without a human being actually taking the time to record it?
AI avatars seem a lot like crypto: they're a neat technology solving the wrong problem. The "inefficiency" of humans interacting with humans is the fundamental component of communication. I guess it's a lot like LLMs: instead of producing less content that is more valuable / thoughtful per unit, we're producing a lot more content that is much less valuable / thoughtful per unit. AI avatars will create more vacuous communication, not enable our communication to be more thoughtful.
Maybe human behavior will change because of this, maybe the next generation that grows up interacting with AI avatars won't have this same feeling that speaking to an actual human means something.
As a technologist I think "omg this is so cool" and it has been genuinely surprising to see how they actively rebuff it.
Left-leaning culture in schools? Such as what left-leaning cultures? That you think there is bias in education kind of shows your own biases/POV
That public education has a left-wing slant in many jurisdictions seems difficult to deny, but I did go to a particulsrly leftwing school district. I do not think you really know anything about my POV and likely the inferences you would make based on my statement are wrong.
It's always existed; you just haven't been around it. It stretches back to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution; read about the Luddites, Blanketeers, and John Henry.
Humans generally don't like having their livelihoods threatened and that's happening more and more as the people who paid others for labor are finding ways to not pay people while simultaneously getting the fruits of labor. It used to just be physical tasks that were simple to automate; now, it's knowledge-based jobs.
Now I'm not sure what I like doing if the bot does my coding. Who am I? My whole identity is built around being an intelligent programmer but if intelligence is commodified and programming is obsolete then I don't know who I am anymore or what to do for fun
:(
Making a living is a concern but.. it almost feels like one of the more shallow ones. I can stack bricks for money but if AI takes the fun out of programming what am I supposed to do for fun
it seems hard to justify like continued massive material deprivation for tons of people in the world on the basis of ‘who am i’ ego for the top like 0.2% income earners globally.
miss me with the .1% salary stuff -- income is not wealth.
We'll never be effectively post-scarcity.
There are people who are banking on scarcity.
If they can replace someone who can deal with problems that are of the size that software engineers deal with on a daily basis, they can replace most of the workforce.
Not conservative as in the 'libertarian', "hand over your agency to the perfect algorithmic machines because they will set you free." But conservative as in traditional.
> My kids all love _making_ art
There's a real human sense of accomplishment and ownership when you put your own effort into making your own creations real. Typing words into a box to make a picture is a fun novelty, and might be useful to people who have to shovel images out the door, but I've never felt anything like the same satisfaction, and I'd imagine kids feel that innately.
Who wants to interact with a computer as if it were a human?
> We expect this space will give rise to multiple billion-dollar companies,
The most miraculous thing about this wave of AI is how democratized it is and how resistant it has been to anyone making money of it.
We all hear promises of how AI will save the world and bring about technological innovation and solutions for hard problems, and what we get is replacement for a job that can be done much cheaper by a human being.
I am getting major crypto vibes here, promises of greatness and bringing nothing but unnecessary fluff.
This is A16z. Calling it unnecessary fluff would be rather polite. I think they are going hard core on to their next scam. Of course crypto vibes is no coincidence here.
> Can’t you just generate an image of a face, animate it, and add a voiceover? Not quite. The challenge isn’t just nailing the lip sync — it’s making facial expressions and body language move in tandem. It would be weird if your mouth opened in surprise, but your cheeks and chin didn’t budge!
Starting here:
- "generate an image of a face, animate it, and add a voiceover?"
Tried this at [0]. Here's an example visual output:
- https://visualmic.com/example-animation-4.gif
Judge for yourself. You can see the mouth and eyebrows move in response to voice volume, and the eyes shift and blink according to settings. But no cheek movement, no head tilt, and no face shape change.
I think TFA is sort of right.
I'm not sure that face cap and AI are 100% needed, and most of the tools for making great VR models seem either pretty complicated or sort of privacy invading. But, better translating voice input into face changes does seem sort of needed.
There's "virtual Youtuber" (vtuber) software too, but that too seems some combination of complicated/clunky, resource intensive, and/or in signup-required land. [EDIT: Surely, there is a good front end at OpenLive3D [1], but making the .VRM model for it, e.g., with VRoid Studio [2] is where things seem start to get a little more time/energy-intensive.]
I'm not against pseudonymous avatars, but is there a third path? It should be easy and open, no? Gonna have to trawl through the suggestions of a16z on this one.
[0] https://visualmic.com
[1] https://openlive3d.com
[2] https://vroid.com/en/studioThat will be the greatest advancement of the millennium for humankind.
I don't want artificial buddies, or servants or whatever except maybe in video games.
There was an advertisement on Twitter a few years ago for Google Home. It was a video where a parent was putting their child to bed, and they said, "Ok Google, read Goodnight Moon."
It felt like a window into a viscerally dystopian future where we outsource human interaction to an AI.
So glad to see SV focusing on first-order problems after all
So then only real artists and ai will remain- these "content creator" human avatar golems were always transitory anyway- software can chase algo's/trends better than any human so good riddance-
They even end this self-righteous screed with "There is only one way to honor their legacy and to create the future we want for our own children and grandchildren, and that’s to build."
This all sounds nice, if completely empty of all substance. And then what do these rich jerkwads actually build? AI Avatars! You can't make this up! They talk big about building tens more nuclear power plants and a replacement for the VA and the capacity for Harvard to teach a million students at a time. But when push comes to shove they are only capable of trying to make some easy money with more AI bullshit no one actually needs.
https://a16z.com/american-dynamism-50-2025/ is their splash page, table is from https://www.construction-physics.com/p/reading-list-031525
I made a phone call to a cable company because I couldn't use their app or website to do what I needed. The bot that answered my call then proceeded to use fake keyboard typing sounds as they "look up my info". Let the bot be a bot. Don't try to trick me.
Building products for a non-existent thing is reminiscent of pets.com