Beyond Avatars: How AI is Reshaping Online Identity

0:00I barely sleep at night because every time I wake up the next morning there's something new that's lost. In the archivinevation, a few years can feel like a long time or no time at all. Because early on things move slow. People ask, are we there yet? And also jump to point out that we're not exactly where people thought we would be. But when technologies hit that exponential phase, things move really quickly. Sometimes, so quickly that we forget that tools like mid -Journey or stable diffusion literally did not exist one year ago. Now in a recent episode, we discussed the first wave of technology used to build digital influencers, and we did that with the creators of Lil' Mikaela.

0:43Mikaela was a first mover and she was built in 2016, but at the same time, she was built with CGI. But today, we're actually presented with an entirely new set of tools, these AI tools, that give almost anyone the opportunity to build a digital influencer of their own. So in today's follow -up episode, I thought it'd be interesting to bring in two new voices, seemingly from different worlds, but also converging on one topic. That topic being, how does artificial intelligence fundamentally change the way that we all represent ourselves online? The first voice is Shanei Bovell. Shanei describes herself as a futurist, but she also wrote an article titled, I am a model and I know that artificial intelligence will eventually take my job.

1:29But here's the thing. She wrote this three years ago, which again, depending on the prism that you have on the world, can both feel like yesterday and forever ago. Our second voice is Danny Posma. Danny has explored the many ways that AI can reshape how we express ourselves online by building the tools to actually enable that. So that ranges from the memes that we post to the tattoos that we put on our body to the headshots that we all post on LinkedIn. And over the last few months, yes, months, not years, he's created seven different projects. And that ranges from the things I just mentioned, tattoos, memes, headshots, but also a virtual modeling agency.

2:10And honestly, if you've been on AI Twitter recently, I can almost guarantee you've seen at least one of his projects. So we brought in Shaneid and we brought in Danny and together we explore how these tools may impact the world of modeling but also creators and just about any forum that we as humans show up online. We'll discuss the deflationary nature of these tools, what they unlock, how to build a moat and so much more. And I'll also say that Shaneid unfortunately had to drop a little bit early but Danny stuck around with us till the very end. Alright, let's get started. As a reminder, the content here is for informational purposes only.

2:46None of the following is investment, business, legal, or tax advice, and please note that A6 and Z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the company's discussed in this podcast. Please see A6 and Z .com slash disclosures for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments.

3:12I'm so excited to have you to online today. As you both know, we did an interview with the creators of Loma Kayla just before this. And Loma Kayla started in 2016. And now it feels like we're going through a second wave of sorts. It feels like maybe anyone can create these characters online. And that could be characters that are net new, that are not necessarily representative of them. or it could be representing their own personality, their own likeness in a new way, using, I feel like the technology of the year, AI. So before we get into that technology and what people are building there, Shaneid, you wrote an article in 2020 with Fogue that I feel like was really prescient.

3:56It was called, I am a model and I know that artificial intelligence will eventually take my job. And here we are in 2023, maybe this does not sound surprising three years later, but back then that was a statement. So tell me a little bit more about that article and what inspired you three years ago to write it. Yes, so I also worked as a futurist. So a lot of my time is spent varied in data tracking trends. I had come across a company called DataGrid using a form of generative AI called adversarial networks. We would know more formally or informally as deep fakes. If this technology can so accurately create artificial identities, artificial beings, what industry could that have a lot of ramifications for?

4:42And the clear cut for me was fashion, especially when it comes to e -commerce, a line or a segment of fashion where it's not necessarily about these creative big movements for a fashion model, but instead just small variations in the posing. And that in some ways is somewhat robotic already. We don't have a lot of variability into the types of poses we can do or the things that we can try when it comes to e -commerce. It has to look good on a website. And so that, to me, was a very clear trend line that I was able to draw. And I did also see, as I was reaching more and more, fashion companies like the Lando, a big e -commerce giant in Germany, also researching the technology.

5:21and then when you combine it with a little Mikaela was also a big influencer back then. This was like 2019 when I started to research all signs pointed to a future where society might be okay with artificial beings representing clothing and where it could be a much more cost effective future for fashion companies. Totally and we're seeing this be extrapolated not just to fashion and we'll get to that but I want to hear when you wrote this article what was the response and maybe break that down both by the people in the modeling industry and then also outside. Yes. It was definitely a shock to a lot of people and I think for a long time, even though technology has always disrupted fashion, whether that's e -commerce or whatever it may be, nobody was really talking about the impact of automation on creative jobs at that time and especially not fashion modeling.

6:12So the fashion world, a little bit of fear, I would say, in the modeling world. But I also tried to, I don't want to just drop kind of fear mongering things and leave everybody, defend for themselves. Same things like it isn't just models, right? Everybody's going to have to prepare for the future of work. So providing that perspective, I think was a little bit reassuring for people. But the amount of responses I received, and not even just in the modeling world, people in advertising, photography, all sorts of surrounding ecosystem, ecosystem players in the world of fashion that will inevitably be impacted by a world where we can digitally generate photoshoots.

6:49The article was received as something highly likely, but I think people couldn't conceptualize how this transformation would actually come about. So it became suddenly true for people that okay in some way modeling might be impacted by AI. Like other industries would be, but they couldn't actually understand what that could actually look like. It became hard to see how that would materialize. And then now in this kind of explosion of generative AI, it's like all the light bulbs are going off, connecting all of the pieces. Yeah. And as I said, it's not just models. I think a lot of people, as you said, it's materializing where they're seeing how these tools today are already maybe not replacing them, but are able to do things that they previously thought they were safe from the advancements of these technologies.

7:38In fact, that was really how people viewed it. They were like, if you're creative, you know, that's where the robots are unable to match you. And we're now seeing that maybe that's not the case. And so, you know, talking about some of these tools, Danny, let's move on to you created many different projects and we'll get into more of them. But one of them was really, you know, this like photo studio of the future is modeling agency where you really could spin up a model, put them in these different backdrops, drop in your product, things like that. And so you posted this a couple of weeks ago and it went really viral.

8:11I think one tweet in particular reached like two million people, but you also, I think saw maybe similar to Shnade's article, a range of responses. And so tell us a little bit about what that product was, but also how people responded to it. I've been doubling with different kind of projects and it all came together and I made this tweet My product wasn't ready yet deep agency the treat went absolutely viral So we didn't 24 hours. I had to come up with something to put life because otherwise there was in the website aligned I think it went for you all got 30 million views as a modeling agency and it's nowhere closer that I think There's a lot of other tools that are way better doing those kind of things But yeah, as you said like all the technologies coming together right now all these different kind of models the ability to generate deep fakes, like none existing people, but also the ability to put the clothing on those kind of models.

9:02It's like all these separated tracks of development by researchers over the last past years that are all coming together in 2023, turning into tools like this. Since you've been kind of like in the bowels of these tool, Danny, do you think, you know, let's say like a year from now or maybe even five years from now, is it realistic that basically you can represent what But the modeling industry does today or what influencers do today with these technologies and have it be pretty much like a one for one or a match in terms of it being as good. So what I'm able to do right now, what others are able to do right now is the ability to use Dreamboof, which is technology to train an AI on top of someone's face and you can basically make a clone, a digital trainer, whatever of someone.

9:46There are other models called StyleGen, which basically are trained on millions and millions of fair photos and they can generate phases and heads that do not exist at the moment. They are non -traceable, they don't exist. Combine those two and you can train a dream booth model on a non -existent person and create a model for example. And then there are other deep learning models that are able to make a, and I believe the name is like a top -down photograph of a clothing that's not being worn by someone. And the AI knows how to put that clothing in kind of the folding ways to put it on top of someone's body, being able to like dress the model in that kind of way.

10:24So the technology is there at the moment, I believe. It's up to a company that understands the fashion industry to take it to the other level. Well, I love that point because there is, you know, this sense of taste of the people in the modeling industry are not just the folks who look a certain way or able to hold a camera a certain way, but they do have this background, this understanding of aesthetic and social aid. Tell me a these companies are using this technology today? Are they leaning in and saying, oh, actually, this is really valuable. We're going to utilize these new tools because we are in this new era, or are they kind of resistant to this new wave?

11:03Yeah, I think it kind of depends on the type of fashion company. So if you look at e -commerce and a company, although we might not be as familiar with Zilando in America, they're quite a big fashion giant in Europe for them to be researching this technology and showing very viable proof of concept as early as 2019. We know that fashion companies are exploring this and we can also say a company like H &M, they have thousands of data scientists that use AI to do things like forecast trends and understand and analyze supply chain. So they already have some of the infrastructure to deploy the next advancements in what the industry will be adopting.

11:43I would say where we might see a little bit more resistance is potentially in high fashion when it comes to using AI for things like design, although I do expect as any tool, it will eventually be adopted. But I would argue that there's probably been instances where any of us on this podcast right now have come across an AI model and just not realize it, shopping online. So I think the technology has been here for years, it's 2023. Companies were investing in it in 2018. It's largely here, it just hasn't materialized as broadly at scale yet, but that's coming. I think maybe one pushback people might have is like, okay, if this thing is AI generated, it's not quote unquote real.

12:27But how real are the photos that we're seeing today anyway? Like ignore the digital virtual influencer concept. The photos that we're seeing on a billboard, like how Photoshopped are those, how real is the end image that we're seeing today? I feel like there's a degree of fabrication already. And so maybe you could just kind of speak to that concept and maybe again just like the natural pushback for us to say Well, this is not human anymore, but how far passed the original photograph where we already? Yeah, I mean that also depends on how representative the models are of society So it could be argued that it is hard to find examples of diverse representation in the fashion industry as it stands today And so therefore seen a piece of clothing on somebody else How helpful is that if your body is a different shape or you couldn't conform to the clothes in the same way.

13:15And in terms of the actual shoes themselves, of course there is a lot of pinning and last minute stitching and things to make things appear to fit a certain way. And then of course the Photoshop part towards the end. I am not the person on the computer doing the Photoshop. So I couldn't tell you exactly how much Photoshop there is. And the day, yeah, an image definitely does get altered. So it isn't entirely like this documentary style photography where it just goes specifically from shoot straight to market. But at the same time, there are interesting social and cultural trends that are converging.

13:49The idea of photoshopping images is becoming a little bit more taboo. People are speaking up against it, that they want to see maybe some of the stretch marks or the cellulite or the acting of the things that make people human. And so it's interesting that those have the social and cultural trends are appearing at a time when we're arguably becoming less human in some ways or how fashion and culture is represented is becoming a little less human. Yeah, I mean, I think maybe one of the most interesting aspects of AI is that you can really prompt it to give you whatever you want. And so you can prompt it literally to say, hey, I want this person to have acne.

14:23I want this person to be of my race or culture or gender. You can really prompt it to give you whatever you want. But at the same time, I think there is this yearning for what people again call real. And I think that term is going to take on a whole new dimension as we look forward. But the last thing I want to ask just as we talk about fashion and modeling is maybe a sense of the cost. The cost differential is something that ultimately plays a role in adoption. And so Danny, let's just use an example, right? So you have this AI model, this person doesn't exist. In fact, you did create one of these.

14:55Her name is Alice and people can find this model at this model does not exist .co. I believe and we'll link that in the show notes. Let's just use that as an example. If you wanted to do a photo shoot with Alice, like how much would that cost? And let's break that down between like actually training the initial data set or the initial face and then actually generating a bunch of images. Let's just give the audience a sense of what that takes. So currently to deep train a model on someone's face to be able to generate photos after that, it costs 60 cents to generate this. Okay. Yeah, so not even a dollar.

15:32And then I think per photo, you're at a fraction of a cent right now. So you could generate hundreds of thousands of photos for less than 100 bucks. So technology is pretty cheap already in that sense. So I believe this is from what I've seen talking to customers, people. The number one question in my life, is from mom and pop shops with clothing brands who do not have the funds to hire models to put on clothing for the web shops. Who I think probably wouldn't even ever be able to hire a model to do the photoshoots for them. So I see this as it's like democratizing for the lower spectrum of these small business, enabling them to do the fashion shoots.

16:15And yeah, I think it's mostly for those kind of consumers that this is interesting to do. Yeah, and there's other applications of that. Like I did a presentation recently, and I used mid -journey for all of my images within that presentation, and I probably would not have had those images. I wouldn't have hired someone at the very least to go create them. And so there is, as you said, this democratizing force, this ability for folks that didn't have access us to a specific technology to use it in these new ways. Shaneid, let's hear the other side of that. Maybe perhaps some of these folks who are models may not be hired for the same roles, or maybe they will still be.

16:54And in the case where they are, what are the benefits of all this? Like, can you do a bunch of shoots where your avatar is, quote, unquote, attending those shoots without you actually physically being there? Can you save a bunch of money, fuel and not traveling? Can you actually upgrade yourself in some way? I'm just throwing ideas out there, but how might this actually change the industry for the better? Is there a world in which a model can be in multiple places at one time and therefore increase their income stream and have more assets of themselves to the out in the market? Absolutely. That could be quite profitable, quite lucrative if the industry does evolve that way.

17:36in a world where we want to see the same influencers and people we look to in fashion to continue to be the face of brands and the clothing. But if you look at the history of technology, technology is often quite deflationary over time, especially when it comes to wages. So in a world where a model can be in multiple places at one time, yes, they may be able to have more revenue streams coming in, but do we see downward pressure on prices? Because a lot of it's created digitally and there's an increase in supply of identities that could pass for being human. And so that's where things get a little bit gray and a little bit ethically red flags and kind of cautioned, because I will say again, it's not that this is unique to modeling.

18:21We're going to see this across the board with AI. It's going to put downward pressure on a lot of different wages from modeling to programming. But But that's where it becomes a little bit challenging. And then what is uniquely applicable to modeling and maybe acting is that not only are people getting automated, but their likeness and the communities they represent are also getting automated, but someone is still benefiting off of that very specific identity. So that's where it starts to become a little bit gray. Yeah, I mean, it's great. I mean, it's going to be interesting to see how that all evolves if, you know, like what regulation gets put in place, what IP people own or do not own that goes into these models on the topic that this really does expand past modeling.

19:08I think what's fascinating, Danny, is you've really went on this sprint over the last few months you've created. I mean, I'm just going to name some of the projects you did tattoo's AI, which is, you know, AI powered tattoo artist. We mentioned Alice, this model that does not exist that you created. You started, I think, or one of your early projects was Profile Picture AI, which is similar to Lensa, which most people would recognize. We talked about deep agency, meme morph. People can morph themselves into their favorite meme. And then most recently, you're working on headshot pro, which is basically people can create their next corporate headshot, or a company can create a kind of wave of headshots for their entire staff.

19:46And so among those projects, first just kind of tell me what you're seeing as you've launched these projects, what people are getting excited about, what you're getting a lot of traction with right away without maybe perhaps even trying and where actually, you know, this technology may be interesting, but it feels more like, you know, a track uphill, if that makes sense. Yeah. So first of all, like the whole reason this skills really fast for me, this gets a lot of the attention because it's indistingual for magic at the moment. You upload a few photos and suddenly you get hundreds and hundreds of provo pictures out for it.

20:21So this is why people keep sharing it on Instagram, on TikTok, it goes viral really fast. The second, like I think what mostly gets solved at the moment is I get a lot of messages from folks who say I don't have any provo pictures, I don't have any photos and suddenly I can look really well online and this is one of the major selling points for headshot, for example. Well, like me, for example, I hate going to photoshoots because I always look super awkward. I don't smile. So for them, this solves the next issue that they can look good on their LinkedIn. The same one with Provo picture, you can turn yourself into whatever you want, Lancet showed how popular that could be.

20:55I believe Lancet did $40 million with that. I like this as an art. I like to double with it. I like to try things out. I get an idea. I have to work it out. It gets easy and easy because it uses the same technology and the headshot has been the biggest success, traffic wise, financial wise at the moment. For remote teams, which is branded at the moment, like good luck trying to get a photograph. If your team is remotely and you have people in Asia, America, Europe, and you want to get the same photo style, like you cannot sense a photograph all around the world to get the same style. But everyone can upload a photo, train an AI model on them, use the same styles to generate it, and basically everyone gets the same headshot for that team.

21:34If you're creative enough in it, you try enough. There are use cases that people think it's gonna take away the photograph, but I think it's gonna enable different things that weren't possible before with this technology. Like having a photograph everywhere in the world, trying out different hairstyles, for example, things that weren't able before that are enabled now by this technology. Yes, kind of crazy. If you go to Hedgehog Pro, I think you have this live counter. And last time I checked it said 450 ,000 plus headshots were created and that's just. I think it's a million now because I have to manually update it in this two weeks life now.

22:12Yes. I was going to say I just checked it last night. You kind of alluded to this but there's ways that people are using this product like you're creating these projects and you're releasing them into the world and you're kind of tinkering and thinking oh maybe people will use it in this way. But I've seen you tweet about the fact that you've actually been surprised that as you release this tool, people are using the tool in ways that you didn't even expect as the creator. Well, that's like with Provo Picture, our learns from the headshots and demapshills because we used to do only these artsy styles and people kept requesting, hey, can I get a LinkedIn photo for myself?

22:45So we kept tinkering it with that way. Yeah, and just on the note of what people are being drawn to, I think maybe one way to have a pulse on that is what people are willing to pay for. And so among your projects, have you noticed any trends there in terms of things that people almost seem allergic to? Like, oh, this is cool. This is novel. But like, I'm not going to pay you $30 for that versus maybe the headshot example is something that people have ingrained in their mind. Like, oh, a headshot is worth $x dollars. So it probably actually started pretty expensive at the time. And I've been lowering the price lower, lower, lower.

23:19And I think we're almost around cost price at the moment. Five dollars to generate them. So, yeah, Lensa basically killed the whole market after their wage life. Right. So, yeah, I think mostly now it's the high quality output and I really wonder where we're going to go in the next few months because these models keep releasing, keep releasing, like I barely sleep at night because every time I wake up the next morning there's something new that's launched that already makes the whole technology obsolete. It's going so far so I don't know where it's going to end up. Well, I know I feel like a lot of people would agree with that sentiment that it's moving so quickly.

23:52It's so hard to keep up on the note of it evolving though, right? These new models are being released all the time. What ways does this really change or shape the way that people can represent themselves online? I think if you use a Hedgehog example, that's kind of a one -to -one parallel to what we did before this technology existed. But maybe what are new, exciting ideas that people can look forward to. I mean, one example of this in fashion is I can't remember how long ago this was, but like Bella Hadid's spray on dress was like a new concept within fashion where people are like, wow, we have this new technology that fundamentally changes what we can create.

24:29So, Shannade, maybe I'll start with you there, but any ideas on how this really, again, doesn't just replicate what we've done before, but maybe unlocks a whole new wave of creativity. On the one hand, it puts design tools in the hands of people who wouldn't have been able to step into the market. And so what does it look like to have an AI system that's been kind of refined on a certain style that you like, that you're able to kind of tweak, and then digitally apply those images to your body or your photograph. So maybe you can't really afford the high brand luxury fashion, but you can generate your own version of luxury using these systems and digitally apply the clothes to you afterwards.

25:10And I know that the digital application of clothes has been something that's been seeming to be in the pipeline for the last few years, but now it really is possible to retrospectively apply clothes to images. And if you look at what the internet and social media did to fashion, we saw the birth of all of these small brands that finally had a shot. In some ways it actually became really cool to be the undiscovered brand that suddenly kind of, you know, was discovered and then popped off by a certain celebrity figuring them out. Imagine what happens when more of us get access to these design tools.

25:42Fashion is really communicator of culture, and now we can push the bounds on that. Almost infinitely, where we conduct photo shoots, who gets to be in them. When we go digital, things change a lot. Of course, again, there are ethical challenges that come with that. Even things like copyright, am I allowed to be inspired by Celine, for example, have an AI system look at the latest collection, and then say, They put me in clothes that look like the latest Celine suit and shoes, but it's not Celine. Where does the IP go there? And are there real designers on the line who may see knockoffs at a whole other skill than we already do?