
**The concept**

Meta has a new feature for their messaging apps that embeds the personality of a celebrity. This is a small step, mind you. These are fake profiles of people who don’t exist. The faces are real but everything else is a kind of archetype-persona wrap.  For example, Kylie Jenner is the ‘big sis’ ‘keeping it real’ but also on the DL (fuck me). I literally don’t know what either of those things means, but I’m sure someone, deep in the neon-dark pits of Meta’s data team, does. Snoop Dog is Dungeon Master (more Dungeons and Dragons than BDSM). This shit is *****weird.***** It’s also undoubtedly backed by petabytes of data.

Even the Queen of Australian sports, Sam Kerr, has a persona. Meet  Sally. And she just, like, totally loves to surf one wave at a time. 

![Sally-aka-Sam-Kerr.png](/img/blog/Sally-aka-Sam-Kerr.png)

*Taking life one wave at a time…..?* 

The revenue stream of celebrity goes hand in hand with the platforms that promote them. To the celebrity, their oxygen is the social platforms that perpetuate their infamy, and therefore their earning power. What's interesting is that these celebs are potentially scorching their own earth. If you squint you can see Meta's longterm play. They're white-labelling social influencers and celebrity. We're getting cheap-knockoff versions of Snoop for now, but you blend that long enough and you'll get 'Taine', a completely falsified individual. We'll either not be able to tell the difference or not care. They're all just 'people' on our screens.  

Undoubtedly, we’re at a tipping-point. The technology isn’t the thing holding us back. We can replicate the look, the voice and, in some sense, now fake the personality. 

Fake people on the internet is nothing new. However, the amalgam of technology packages it differently. These [AI-driven people have certain lives they lead](https://about.fb.com/news/2023/09/social-profiles-for-metas-ai-characters/), pictures they take and places they go. One is a ‘proud-momma of two’, another is a man who gives out dating advice. The images are classic life-style ‘eat,love,laugh’ influencer shtick -  beach-wedding, aesthetically-pleasing food, Thai yoga retreat and.. yep, private plane. 

Meta says their goal is get everyone to create their own AI-bots. I feel that when they say ‘everyone’, they really mean influencers. Oh, and brands. 

All the motherfuckin’ brands. 

**The demand**  

So, what’s this got to do with Meta? Well, and I’m probably wrong, but I think a lot. Meta is in the business of supplying brands with access to people. They are the bridge-troll that takes brands money so they can cross into the chasm of people’s inner-thoughts and life. 

 The second and third order effects of having AI-lives creates other avenues. Threads, their Twitter (I’m not calling it X), competitor is undoubtedly very interested to see how these personalities can play a role in creating content and ‘engaging’ people.

**Where can it go wrong**

 ** Scenario A: The Bots go bad**  

![BotGoBad](/img/blog/OhNoTay.png)

It took just 48 hours for Microsoft’s Tay AI bot to go from Johnny-5 to robo-Nazi. The obvious danger is that the AI just starts posting wild, insane stuff. It’s almost so obvious as to not be an issue because Meta has very smart people who would see this coming a mileaway. Let’s be clear though. The danger isn’t the spreading of misinformation or just fringe ideologies, it’s the disconnect between the brand and the ai-nfluencer (does that work?). You can’t have Ford Motors pay millions to a robot that’s going to say Nazi’s are awesome. 

But it’s not the obvious stuff like racism or anti-semantic remarks I’d be concerned about. The problems are more nuanced than that. If Taylor Swift bot says she’s anti-abortion, is that bad? Is that good? The nuances here are too many. A brand is defined by what it isn’t as much as what it is. Can a bot exhibit a stance on anything? Second question - what does it mean if it does, anyway? Was Microsoft’s AI Tay racist - *****what***** is Tay? 

**Scenario B: The bots go off-brand**

The danger is that in order for the Meta AI’s to be effective, they’d need to adapt to current affairs and contemporary issues. Therein lies the danger. You can’t have Kylie Jenner reflecting on the issues in the Middle East. You can’t have Snoop Dogg aka Dungeon Master be pro-Trump. This is nuclear-levels of danger to the celebrity brands. A celebrity IS their brand. You can’t fuck with that, least you be cancelled. 

The door-swings both ways - if you’re going to leverage the likeness of Kylie Jenner and Mr Beast to create a connection to their AI counter-part, then you’re also going to be on the hook for when they behave inverse to their carefully brand-managed selves. 

**Scenario: C People demand real. Brands go real(er)** 

The other danger is normal, human people don’t want anything to do with AI personalities. And why wouldn’t we? Already these celebrities live lives that aren’t relatable. Private jets, exotic holidays, expensive clothes is what many aspire to replicate. Being known is the very definition of celebrity. Adding an artificial photo to the life of an artificial person with an artificial caption isn’t appealing. It’s poser behaviour. And lame. And.. *****dystopian*****. 

**The benefit** 

Everything Meta does openly is a validation test that effects billions of people. And that’s what we’re in now. This is a social company, testing technology, and hoping to use these AI personas as the vanguard for ai-fluencer brand integrations. 

And this is the big thing. If Meta is able to create artificial brand people, who engage and have discussions, that represent themselves in a one-to-one style relationship but at scale, then.. I don’t know what you have exactly. Falsehood, I suppose. 

Scrolling through some of these profiles, I can’t but feel that we’re better than this. I mean, the tech community as a whole. This can’t be the apex of what we’re able to achieve. It’s not, obviously, but some incredible minds contribute to this shit.



Celebrity-Fakes-As-A-Service


# The apple in our eyes.

Apple’s rumours of entering the VR arena finally stopped being rumours. The Vision Pro is a headset that allows us to swim in spatial awareness. Rejoice! By all accounts the technology is cutting edge. It’s got multi-camera setup, accurate as hell hand tracking and 4k resolution - all the things. It’s the best VR headset there is. 

**Hide yo kids, hide yo wife, they coming for the TV.** 

Based off Apple’s keynote, the Vision isn’t about the ‘metaverse’ or VR at all. Instead, the word ‘spatial’ computing was used instead of meta or virtual reality. In the 9 minute keynote video, Apple spent most of the time focusing on how Vision can be a really big screen to watch stuff on. Any demonstrations of working, playing or being social were light and not overly in-depth.  The one big takeaway? Apple doesn’t think you’ll need a TV if you have the Vision. 

![CreeperMan](/img/blog/creeper-man-VR.png)

*Pictured: a digital creep of a man.*  

**Where’s the Apps?** 

![VisionOS](/img/blog/visionOS-apps.png)

During the presentation something stood out as a big red flag: a severe lack of a killer appThe Vision can make a really big screen, the spatial stuff is great, and the hand gesturing interactions are really cool. But the suite of apps that come with VisionOS are ports of what’s already on our phones, tablets, and laptops, albeit optimised for the VisionOS. But, where’s THE app that’s going to make us rush out and buy this thing? What’s it able to do that we aren’t already doing? Where’s its VisiCalc? 

> [John Markoff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Markoff) wrote that the computer was sold as a "VisiCalc accessory",[[20]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc#cite_note-markoff19820705-20)and many bought $2,000 (equivalent to $8,100 in 2022) Apple computers to run the $100 software[[17]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc#cite_note-mcmullen19840221-17) — more than 25% of those sold in 1979 were reportedly for VisiCalc[[16]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc#cite_note-brandel19990802-16) — even if they already owned other computers.[[21]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc#cite_note-barry19811005-21) [Steve Wozniak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Wozniak) said that small businesses, not the hobbyists he and [Steve Jobs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs) had expected, purchased 90% of Apple IIs.[[22]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc#cite_note-byte198501-22) Apple's rival [Tandy Corporation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandy_Corporation) used VisiCalc on Apple IIs at their headquarters
> 

Here’s the rub - The Vision looks awesome as technological thing. There’s just no obvious reason to buy one. And if there’s no reason for consumers to buy it, then why take the risk to create an app for it in the first place? Porting over existing apps that we already have isn’t going to cut it for the customer. It’s a vicious cycle. The hardware needs apps, but the apps need the customers to sell…

The reason to buy and use apps on the Vision needs to be utterly compelling. ********Sitting alone in a room and rewatching videos of kids isn’t compelling. Doing a slideshow in 3D isn’t compelling. Recording your child’s birthday party is not just socially awkward, it’s downright dystopian. And not compelling. Compelling is something that the price, comfort, limited battery-life, and hassle of putting it off and on again can be overcome.  The meditation app isn’t it - this isn’t Black Mirror, Tim. 

**Apple’s expectations: low**

Creating a hardware platform and hoping developers make it into something worthwhile only works if:

a) the developers believe the market is lucrative or big enough to handle it 

b) the thing is going to be around in the medium to long term

Apple estimate they will ship 150,000 units. At the price point of $5000 AUD the total forecasted revenue from Vision Pro equates to a trivial .0002% compared to Apple’s total revenue from ‘22. 

The total market is pretty tiny, even by early-adopter standards. And the overall revenue Apple will generate will be very, very small. Will Apple stick it out in the long term? 

The biggest hurdle is that the apps on offer are extensions of what is already possible with all our other devices. That may be a benefit, technically speaking, but it echos an issue we see overall: if the same app can be transferred across to this device, what’s the device doing *better* than our existing solutions? 

**What’s a screen, anyway?**

One unexplored area is how spatial computing challenges the notion of what a ‘screen’ is. For the last 70 years, rectangles and squares have been the paradigm for how we consume, interact and socialise digitally. Spatial computing challenges this, and maybe this is the vector of where, finally, headsets play a role. Our computing monitors are not social devices. We interact with them on a 1 to 1 basis, seldom sharing the screen unless invited in. Like the tablet. Like the phone. The Apple could extend this idea and bring it about to our entire vision. Is this what we want? Time will tell.

The apple in our eyes. 


Our love affair with AI's large learning models, such as ChatGPT, is already making an impact to our every day lives. Sassy robot butlers seem just over the horizon. With AI, we aim to advance beyond what software currently does best - empowering us, reducing tedious tasks, and making us superhuman. It seems like every day we’re finding new ways to improve the user experience.   



We’re also urging caution. New technology brings new ways of solving old problems. The temptation is to focus on the AI part without seeing how it benefits the user. Worse still, is riding the wave and applying AI to mediocre ideas in order to standout. 

 

[We’ve](https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-disable-bixby-on-your-samsung-phone) [been](https://www.shavershop.com.au/oral-b/genius-ai-electric-toothbrush-with-3-replacement-heads--and-smart-travel-case-black-010597.html) [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Blockchain_Corp) [before](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pets.com). 

From the user's perspective, we believe there are many opportunities to create ideal user experiences with AI. However, the fundamentals of good software experiences have not changed: empower the user with the tasks they want to do and minimise the ones they either don't want or can't do by themselves.

## Good AI in action

While AI isn’t necessarily new, the most effective use is in how it lives under the hood. The AI is there as a considerate friend, a guide, a servant at your beck and call. It’s either helping you or moving things out of your way. 

- Composing an email in Gmail allows for it to do a sort of ‘super’ autocomplete, to finish emails off
- Notion AI tool allows for several options to help with writing or generating ideas.
- Adobe is making Photoshop be able to do more with their generative background fill
- Commonwealth Bank, as one example, use AI for pattern discovery and Fraud Detection
- Git Co-Pilot assists developers with code suggestions that’s contextually relevant.

*Notion’s AI toolkit makes suggestions for writing. However, I don’t know if it necessarily makes the user into a better writer. The jury is still out whether AI helps writing OR reduces the need to write clearly, but that’s a topic for another day.* 

## A few predictions : 

- One big thing we’re already seeing is the ability for unstructured data, like an email or conversation, to be converted to a structured format suitable for an API or some other piece of software. Scenarios where documents need to be read, interpreted and actioned will be ripe for further reducing friction.
- How we describe and label AI-fused actions may not necessarily need to invoke ‘AI’ in the label. I.e. “Remove background” is clearer than “AI Background remover”.
- Navigational tools, like search, can be better used to parse search queries. Instead of ‘Men’s Nikes’ a user could search using sentiment ‘Something sporty and fun’.
- Prompts for generating images, such as Mid-Journey or Dall-E , are still a pain. Further investment into a UI will be needed to move it from early adopters to the general public (though other platforms will most likely adopt it and apply their familiar UI to need the needs of the user. See: [Canva](https://www.canva.com/magic-write/))
- JasperAI, a writing tool for marketers, will be vulnerable to users going direct to ChatGPT. They will either pivot or die by the AI-sword.
- AI is very expensive, computationally. Pricing plans that target a per-use basis will become  more common as more products embed AI.
- Very long term - Our big bet is AI will be able to navigate software including using authentication to access bank accounts (scenario: ‘hey Siri, transfer $50 to my nephew for my birthday’). I can see Apple introducing Siri 2.0 that is far more capable and, importantly, more trusted to do riskier operations. Apple’s next Trillion will come from mining trust, not data.
- In the realms of AI-made art, taste and curation will become key. Will this be AI-lead? Potentially, but AI isn’t ‘smart’ - it operates on probability. And humans are notoriously hard to peg down when it comes to taste.
- Relationships & trust will still be hard-earned. You cannot outsource trust and connection to AI. That’s what alcohol and coffee is for.


Hatch Head

UX

Celebrity-Fakes-As-A-Service

The apple in our eyes.

Don’t go chasing (AI) Waterfalls

Main Office