An Avatar is a concept that explains the material appearance or incarnation of a deity on earth. Ethically speaking, incarnation concepts similar to avatar are found in Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and other religions. The term is most often associated with the Hindu God Vishnu, though the idea has been applied to other deities.
But as artificial intelligence continues to mature, we are seeing a corresponding growth in sophistication for humanoid robots and the applications for digital human beings in many aspects of modern-day life. Soon enough, they may as well become so advanced , that we will have a whole copy of oneself.
Digital human beings are photorealistic digitized virtual versions of humans, in other words, avatars. While they don’t necessarily have to be created in the likeness of a specific individual, they do look and act like humans. Unlike digital assistants, such as Siri or Alexa, these virtual beings are designed to interact, sympathize and have conversations, just like a fellow human being would.
Digital humans have been used in television, movies and video games already, but there are limitations when comparing them to a real person. It is challenging to predict exactly how digital humans will alter our future. There are people pondering what digital immorality would be like, or how to control negative possibilities of the technology.
Digital humans or avatars as I already stated look exactly like humans, but unlike us, avatars are accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week; they never have a day off; they never forget and use deep troves of data to provide in-depth real-time answers. The method they use refers to tonality, they listen the tones of the letters. Then they use their own voice and body language to create lifelike human conversations.
The thing that scares me most, is the idea that digital humans or avatars that look exactly like us, or better said, a second me. Avatars of ourselves would indeed make some things easier. For example, if I have to be somewhere I would not have to get ready, I could just do it from home. The problem with this is, while the digital humans are progressing, we are not realizing that slowly our reality fades away. Avatars can also reflect me in the way I want to, and not in the way I really am.
What is real about having a conversation with someone as your avatar, while you are at home? How would that define us as humans? Is that honestly worth forgetting how we live normally on a daily basis?
All of this seen by the law, on 25.05.2018, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation took effect. Among these rights, the GDPR guarantees individuals the right to have a decision based solely on automated processing (an algorithm), made or reviewed by a natural person, instead of a computer. Honestly it is scary how fast Avatars are progressing.
An example is given by software researcher Doug Roble, where he debuts “DigiDoug”, an avatar version of himself. The avatar is completely accurate, down to the scale of pores and wrinkles. It is powered by enormous amounts of data, as the avatar renders the person’s emotions and face movements in striking details, to the point of how his blood flows and eyelashes move.
But if this goes on, our lives will probably revolve around making our avatar better, instead of us as people. If we are constantly strapped to a computer that we control, as time goes on, we would not only forget what the outside world looks like, but medical complications and mental exhaustion would appear from the radiation that machinery releases.
It is definitely a topic to think about. Is that really a future we strive for and want to have? Is that really a future worth living for?
Sources: Regulation of Artificial Intelligence: Europe and Asia; Forbes: Artificial Human Being, the amazing examples of Robotic Hummanoides and Digital Humans.
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