Growth and Development of Digital Humans: Workers of Ones and Zeros Are No Longer Flesh and Bone

The rapid development of artificial intelligence has led to the entry of so-called digital employees into the workforce, who can offer numerous advantages to a company’s business. Many experts say that there are also pitfalls when integrating digital employees into business processes, but it seems that there are more advantages than disadvantages with such ’employees’. According to the current specification, there are four main types of digital employees, from virtual agents performing specific, one-time tasks for companies, to influencers and virtual companions providing emotional support and creating personal, even romantic relationships with users. In any case, some new digital humans are already around us. They are sales assistants who never sleep, multilingual presenters and trainers, and influential people on social media promoting various brands, and the only thing they have in common is that they exist in digital form in a series of zeros and ones.

Useful and Expensive

Lingyao Yuan, a professor of information systems and business analytics at Iowa State University, has been researching the emergence of digital humans for the past seven years. She says that this new technology offers companies several significant advantages. First and foremost, it is the ability to work 24/7, always blindly following all company policies and, most importantly, never asking for a raise, days off, or sick leave. What could be better! Professor Yuan also notes that digital employees are extremely useful for providing ‘help to people in sharing sensitive information’, citing a study that showed that American military veterans are more willing to discuss their symptoms with digital humans than with real-life medical professionals. As we can see, digital humans can indeed be of great help, but investments in them are not small, and perhaps not every company is the right choice for such and similar services. There is also the issue of ethical questions when discussing their use.

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– As we now see with ChatGPT, new technology can be disruptive. Companies need to discuss potential impacts and unintended outcomes before deciding to implement digital humans, explains Yuan.

To reach industry leaders, Yuan and her colleagues wrote a paper for Harvard Business Review. They drew data from the latest research, including their own, and interviews with founders and CEOs of companies like Pinscreen and EY that have employed digital employees. The article highlights four types of digital humans and offers guidelines for companies as they consider investing in this relatively new area of artificial intelligence.

Four Types

According to the mentioned paper, there are four types of digital humans, or employees: virtual agents, virtual assistants, virtual influencers, and virtual companions. Virtual agents are used for specific, one-time tasks and provide almost the same advantages as chatbots, only they look like humans. Companies could hire such digital humans as sales agents or to train new employees, the real ones. Already, the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California is researching how virtual humans could help future healthcare workers practice recognizing symptoms and medical conditions.

The second group is virtual assistants, who also help people with specific tasks, but similar to voice-controlled assistants like Alexa and Siri. Researchers highlight Digital Domain as an early pioneer of this technology. The company is developing digital assistants for Zoom that could take notes during meetings, provide summaries, and schedule or arrange the next meeting. Other potential applications include personal shopping and physical therapy. The third group of ‘digitals’ are virtual influencers, who behave and do everything that their living counterparts do. They promote brands and fashion trends, post photos and videos, and live a good virtual life. An example is virtual Miquela (formerly Lil Miquela), who lives in LA and on Instagram. She has 2.8 million followers, and although she does not actually exist, she has already appeared in ads for Prada and Calvin Klein, and is currently an ambassador for the teen brand PacSun.

The Biggest Hope

After virtual influencers, the last group to arrive is virtual companions, friends, partners, or whatever you want to call them. They are there to provide emotional support and create relationships with users. Artificial intelligence researchers believe that this technology, i.e., such use of technology has the greatest impact in caring for the elderly as it reduces loneliness. However, so far, only virtual women have emerged who offer quiet night conversations for lonely men, like Replika, which is currently the most popular AI friend in the digital world. How far a virtual companion for retirees has come is best illustrated by Replika, which has turned to lonely middle-aged men who miss conversation and tenderness, and offers much more (sexting) if you pay for the pro version.

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Professor Yuan and her colleagues, however, place the most hope in these last digital humans who could remind retirees when to take their medication, go for check-ups, and similar, and therefore see the most benefit in them. However, currently, the most prevalent digital humans are still the first ones, digital, i.e., virtual agents.

Yuan began her research back in 2011 and focused it on anthropomorphism (i.e., attributing human characteristics or behaviors to non-human entities).

– I believe that the fundamental key to treating artificial intelligence as a human equivalent is evoking the process of anthropomorphism. Realistic human faces can be a powerful incentive for people to behave towards digital humans as if they were real. I believe that both visual excitement and intelligence must be present, explains Yuan, adding that further research is needed.

Many of her research projects have been in collaboration with Mike Seymour at the University of Sydney. Seymour was the head of special effects at Disney for 20 years before moving to academia. One of their recent studies showed that participants rated digital humans with realistic appearances as more credible compared to cartoon caricatures, especially in 3D virtual reality like the failed metaverse. Also, some research has focused on virtual agents that look like celebrities, asking how people would react if their AI customer service looked and sounded like, say, Samuel L. Jackson. Other projects have focused on virtual assistants in Zoom, where they analyze whether the appearance of avatars affects how people behave or perceive information.

Ahead of All – China

As is often the case with new technologies, China is already far ahead of everyone when it comes to digital, virtual humans and assistants. Thus, an increasing number of Chinese companies are deciding to direct their resources towards such employees, and the technology company Baidu claims that the number of virtual person projects has doubled in a year. Among the companies using them, those engaged in financial services stand out, as well as tourism boards and even state media that have introduced their digital news anchors. Due to such mass acceptance of this new technology, it is predicted that by 2025, the industry in China alone will reach over six billion euros.

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According to one study, last year at least 36 percent of consumers in China watched a performance by a virtual influencer or digital celebrity, and twenty-one percent of viewers watched a virtual person hosting an event or broadcasting news. The best example is the company Bilibili, which was among the first to introduce the concept of digital humans into mainstream. The company is behind the virtual singer Luo Tianyi, who is entirely a product of artificial intelligence and even performed at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Beijing.