[ExI] You’ll soon have your own digital clone

[efc at swisscows.email]

On Fri, 3 May 2024, BillK via extropy-chat wrote:

> Why you’ll soon have a digital clone of your own
> by Mike Elgan     02 May 2024
>
> <https://www.computerworld.com/article/2097112/why-youll-soon-have-a-digital-clone-of-your-own.html>
> Quotes:
> AI isn’t going to replace you at work. You will.
> Some of the most influential influencers on social media sites aren’t
> people, but computer-generated digital creations. And soon digital
> “people” will be commonplace in business.
>
> To me, the most fascinating dimension to the digital influencer
> phenomenon is the reaction of the public. Followers who presumably
> know these influencers are computer-generated actually leave comments
> on their posts, addressing the non-person as if they were capable of
> reading and understanding comments.
>
> It’s unsettling to think that these commenters don’t know they’re
> talking to a fake person, and also unsettling to think they do know —
> and comment anyway. Some commenters are themselves virtual influencers
> (no doubt playing the Instagram game of performative engagement on the
> accounts one wishes to steal followers from).
>
> This is a clue to the future: A huge chunk of the public appears to be
> indifferent to whether the person who is “influencing” them is real or
> fake.

Reminds me of William Gibsons Idoru, where someone wants to marry a 
virtual personality. He did look pretty far into the future! But 
cyberspace does seem to be very elusive though. ;)

Plot summary:

In the post Tokyo/San Francisco earthquake world of the early 21st 
century, Colin Laney is referred to agents of rock and roll megastar Rez 
(of the musical group Lo/Rez) for a job using his peculiar talent of 
sifting through vast amounts of mundane data to find "nodal points" of 
particular relevance. Rez has claimed to want to marry a synthetic 
personality named Rei Toei, the Idoru (a Japanese virtual idol) of the 
title, a claim stranger than usual and therefore questioned by his loyal 
staff, particularly by his head of security, Keith Blackwell. Blackwell 
believes that someone is manipulating Rez, and wants Laney to find out 
who.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idoru

Best regards,
Daniel


> ---------------
>
> "Reality" becomes stranger and stranger..........
>
> BillK
>
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