AI Avatars & Ethics in Synthetic Media with Arif Khan Founder and CEO of Alethea AI
The Most Important Thing
Check out Alethea.AI to learn more about the future of creator-owned avatars in the Metaverse
About Arif Khan
Arif Khan is the CEO and Co-founder of Alethea AI.
Arif’s prior executive leadership roles include managing the global blockchain-based AI marketplace SingularityNET where Arif was its CMO and popularized the Humanoid Robot Sophia. In his early career, Arif witnessed the disruptive transformation that digital platforms brought, where he led Growth and Business Development for LinkedIn in Asia.
Arif has been regularly invited to speak at major global events like The World Economic Forum, World Web Forum, Consensus 2020, and has guest lectured at the Singapore Management University’s MBA program. He is a top writer for Artificial Intelligence on Medium.com and his work has been covered or featured in The Joe Rogan Show, CBS, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal & The New York Times.
About Alethea AI
Alethea AI is a protocol that empowers Creators to build photorealistic and intelligent AI Avatars. Alethea AI is part of a select few companies globally that is helping to test and refine Open AI’s state-of-the-art GPT-3 technology for photorealistic characters.
Episode Overview:
In this episode, I had the chance to sit down with the founder and CEO of Alethea AI, Arif Khan. Arif's previous company, SingularityNet were the creators of now famous, Sophia the Robot, and he’s taken his work there to new heights in building Alethea. Alethea is a platform for building AI Avatars whose mission is to democratize CGI and to enable creators, developers, and fans to create expressive, intelligent and interactive AI.
I learned a ton from Arif on this episode as we explored the edges of the Metaverse, the philosophy and ethics around artificial intelligence, the meaning of human-level intelligence, consciousness, aliens, Karma and more.
My Favorite Quotes:
“We’re getting closer to that simulated reality where we won’t be able to distinguish what is real and what is fake, right? But then again, were we ever able to?”
“If we look at the state of the world: our sensemaking and meaning-making capacities are under assault.”
“The charismatic CEO character is embedded in our culture today, but pseudonymity (and Satoshi Nakomoto) has changed that”
“There is significant humility today, that I had not seen before, around the uncertainty of our reality and what defines our consciousness. People are trying to answer the question: what does it mean to be human?”
“We were experimenting recently with bringing back a character from a well-known movie series. You need to scan the data of this character’s past dialogues, but you’d also want to train it to interpret new data to form new meaning.”
“Our desire for perfection is so strong and our desire to complete the cycle is so strong and our desire to attain that peace is so strong, but sometimes if that is the overriding the desire; that can be an extremely difficult thing to input into a system to optimize for.”
“What if removing Karma is actually SUPPOSED to be a difficult thing to achieve.”
“What are the levels of disconnection and addiction that are possible when a character becomes expressive, realistic, and emotive?”
“The vision of Alethea is that we believe a metaverse will come to life with millions of these characters, but fundamentally the agency must go to each individual to chose. We need to design systems with individual agency in mind.”
“I think that aspirational values can save us.”
“Beauty will save the world – beauty, and art, and these higher order meaningful ideas can actually move us in the right direction.”
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 – The current state of reality
2:00 – Synthetic media, the uncanny valley, and Open AI
8:00 – Turing test and understanding “human-level intelligence”
15:00 – Are we humans deterministic or can we alter our programming?
23:00 – Karma, programming, and the power of the human mind
30:00 – The CIA’s obsession with the Occult and Remote Viewing
36:00 – The pros and cons of AI romantic partners
42:00 – What characteristics are important for AI avatars to have
48:00 – Can AI relationships be as meaningful and impactful as human ones?
56:00 – What is Alethea?
1:02 – Why blockchain-based wrappers are important for digital avatars
1:08 – Wisdom of the crowds + memetic meaning of names
Episode Links:
Arif’s Info
Alethea AI Info
Other Resources & References
Her Trailer (one of my favorite sci-fi films)
Alan Watts: Out of Your Mind Essential Lectures
Raised by Wolves (TV Series by Ridley Scott)
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD
CIA Remote Viewing Program: Stargate Project
Russell Targ Banned Psychic Abilities TEDTalk
In-Shadow – A Modern Odyssey, animated short film
The Surrender Experiment by Michael Simpson
Marc’s Info:
Marc Weinstein, host of the Look Up! Podcast is a public speaker for corporations, universities, and conferences. Click here to view past talks and to book Marc
