Are you ready for more of you?

A couple of years ago, I was entranced by a client who told me they are training avatars with all the interactions of employees who are retiring in the next few years, to make digital versions of them. Initially, just so that remaining employees can talk to their avatar after their retirement, so their tacit knowledge and wisdom is not lost. But later, the goal is for those avatars to continue to work as ‘AI employees’. Maybe with the retired human being given a small annual stipend to allow their avatar to continue to work. Depending on how you feel/ what mood you are in, you might find this idea exciting, worrying, distasteful etc. It definitely raises a bunch of interesting questions. Should employees be allowed to opt in/ out, in general, and for specific activities, like their emails, meeting contributions, even personal social media activities. How much should they be paid? Do the avatars need employment contracts? Whose fault is it if the avatar causes something bad to happen? Should the avatar’s knowledge be frozen in time, or continue to learn? Very recently, I had a tiny, little personal taste of this. My grawesome friend and colleague Arnold Gao, who is constantly learning and experimenting, used a bunch of AI models in his spare time to ingest all the LinkedIn posts I have ever written, and created a digital unthinker that you can talk to. If you fancy, please try it out: https://unthinker.online When I tried it, I was freaked out that it did sound very much like me. My nephew, who credits me as an important mentor, tried it, and told me he found it a slightly better version of me and didn’t need the humanme anymore. I have no real message to share here – just to say it is a really interesting piece of the AI story, worth us all thinking about. #unthink #unask #unlearn