"I don't know if it was a prank; I hope it was, but even if it was, it's plausible. It seems like the logical endpoint of AI and bots: Create AI versions of people and you don't need as many people! Heck, after a while, the twins could replace the originals. The financial argument makes itself, at least in the short term, at least as long as you've never heard of the labor theory of value or have any concept of aggregate demand."
"The plot revolves around studios (I think) that had been trying to optimize the beauty of actresses in commercials and movies through plastic surgery. At some point, the studios figured out that they can instead create digital twins of the actresses and optimize those, thereby saving money and trouble. Of course, as long as the actual actresses were still running around, there was a risk that they'd do things to diminish the appeal of the digital twins."
A spam email proposed creating AI versions of people to reduce headcount, suggesting twins could replace originals and invoking short-term financial logic that ignores labor theory of value and aggregate demand. The premise recalls the 1981 film Looker, which centers on studios optimizing actresses' beauty through surgery and then creating digital twins to save money. The studios murder original actresses after copying them to control their images, turning the story into a murder mystery. The film is flawed and sexist, but it portrays digital-twin manufacturers as villains and contains a strain of humanism asserting human value over commodified images.
Read at Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]