From AFP News Agency.
To actor Adam Coy, the job seemed like a better gig than most: film yourself in four locations, send in the clips and get paid.
“It was pretty good money so I said, OK let’s do it,” Coy told AFP, “In my I guess naive brain when I hear ‘AI avatar’ I was thinking like a Wii version of me or a video game version of me – like a cartoon animated avatar.”
When his girlfriend’s mother later alerted him to an Instagram account that appeared to feature his “long lost twin”, Coy seemed to see himself — a hyper-realistic avatar using his face and voice to host an account promising dire predictions of the future.
In an interview with AFP, Coy talks about licensing his likeness to a content creation company who used his face and voice, and let AI do the rest.
*AI is upending the way we understand information online. In this series, we report on trends and interview experts to show how tools are evolving and how AFP journalists are adapting their techniques.
