Disclosure: Nvidia is a client of the author's service.
Nvidia's GTC conference is my favorite as the company doesn't just talk about what it has done; it offers a framework that explains how you will meet needs you often didn't know you had. For example, this year's event featured multiple demonstrations of technology that can take a video image from a videoconference, alter it in real time, and let your image speak any language while you watch the audience. There is also the future ability to potentially change your appearance on demand.
(Watching the CEO plea is like looking into the future: Nvidia CEO Jensen Haung remains the gold standard for how to make any of these things epic.)
In another presentation, Nvidia highlighted an avatar of Huang entering an assembly and cooperating in real time as a proxy. The avatar seemed more like a caricature, but in a talk following the presentation, Huang pointed out that there were between 3 and 5 years to bring these technologies together. By then, he will be able to create a digital twin that can do tasks that it cannot do due to time conflicts, or that are so basic that artificial intelligence can easily do them. It is conceivable that his avatar will continue to exist and evolve after he leaves the company, retires, or dies.
This future raises fascinating questions that we will face when these advances are free.
Create a digital twin
Huang suggested a future where many of us are going to have metaverse instances that resemble the webs of today. Instead of a bunch of text specifying who we are, or in my case, what I wrote, you get access to a photorealistic avatar of the owner of the place. This avatar can then be invited to cooperate, answer questions, and even write posts, articles, or other forms of communication.
In this scenario, you own your metaverse instance and likely own the copyright to the associated content, which would continue to be paired with . But, what if, instead of being the owner of the place, his company is? (It wouldn't be affordable to create it, though services will surely sprout up that could create it for you, in the same way we have site services today.) The company would like to preserve everything you've done for it, and would like to keep your private stuff private. But having an avatar acting as a proxy would require both sets of data. This could be conflicting.
For example, if he ends up leaving Ford for GM, Ford would not want GM to grill his avatar about Ford's strategy, and GM would not want Ford to extract proprietary information from his avatar. This could be solved by properly classifying the information, but I doubt that either company wants me to do the same. This may require a third party service to safeguard his employer's confidential information and to safeguard his personal information from the companies he works for.
The heyday of avatars clearly raises all sorts of related drawbacks.
Digital immortality?
If your avatar continues once you leave to find another job, retire or die, there should be a way to compensate you for its use once you leave; in exchange, it would keep the avatar up to date and let it mature without compromising privacy. It would be in their interest to keep it viable, but with the established conditions and protection, its avatar does not lead to a battle over intellectual property.
People working in generic fields could create multiple avatars that function in a plurality of businesses, each producing income that, in sum, makes a living, just as people live on social media today. Offering services to run this stable of avatars sounds like a future business opportunity for someone.
When you die, that avatar could carry on, giving your heirs income (such as guidance and companionship). Certain people may even sell or lease versions of their avatars to game companies that use them for more realistic non-player characters (NPCs). One version of you could spend your digital life as multiple NPCs that look real and behave more like people.
When avatars collaborate
Future avatars could be used for cooperation and you'd still look good (you could freeze your age). Naturally, there could be a language issue and the need to translate what you claim into multiple languages at once. If, as Huang suggests, the app sits between , your camera, and your microphone, it could do an automatic translation into other languages. The cooperating app should be able to alter its image to reflect the way its words are rendered and bypass latency in real time.
If Huang is right, and he usually is, we are 3-5 years away from having the ability to be in multiple places at once and extend multiple versions of ourselves, paid for. It could manage a better life or create unhealthy levels of difficulty that can be quite difficult to deal with. Dealing with this second party first will affect how long it takes for services and related capabilities to mature, and how many contention results. I can already imagine multiple inconveniences regarding the owner of your avatar and the proper administration of the information it contains.
I leave you with one last thought. By the end of the decade, some of us could have thousands and thousands of digital proxies, mostly small digital ones, running. Who is responsible if one of them derails?
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