This is Lil Miquela. She is a famous Instagram influencer with a following of 1.5 million people. On her profile, she regularly posts photos with celebrities and events she attends. She shares her thoughts, moments with her friends, and fashion tips. She is very active on Instagram, with many collaborations with big companies, such as the one with Samsung for the promotion of the Galaxy s10 smartphone.
She is also completely fictional and computer generated.
Lil Miquela is a digital project created via motion graphics software by Brud, an LA startup company that specializes in robotics and artificial intelligence. Although Lil Miquela herself is not an AI being, she has led investors to trade in artificial intelligence technology to produce more advanced digital influencers.
Lil Miquela’s case, despite the ethical considerations that creates about identity, reality perception and selfhood, among others, can be linked to future discussions about the ways AI will affect humanity. Some experiments have already been conducted about its positive and negative effects on people.
For example, according to The Atlantic, a Yale lab experiment included a project where people collaborated with a robot on a common cause. The robot had some human-like characteristics, such as making errors and apologizing. The experiment showed that the robot’s presence facilitated human interactivity and helped in relationship forming. Similarly, a 2017 study showed that bots helped in the limitation of harassment online (Munger, 2016).
On the other hand, the same article presents a different experiment that describes a negative impact of artificial intelligence creations on humans. In that experiment, participants could keep money they gained in a context of an online game or give the double amount to another participant who had the same option. Participants chose to give the money away in the initial stages of the game, only to change behavior when bots acting as humans were added to the game, who acted selfishly by keeping the money.
It is true that artificial intelligence will evolve in the future, creating an environment where more and better advanced versions of Lil Miquela, that would actually feature AI technology, would be a common sight. As R. L. Adams notes, artificial intelligence already has applications in many aspects of our daily life. But, are we ready for such developments? Or, are we driving into the future, using only our rearview mirror, as Marshall Mc Luhan noticed so many years ago? The AI era is almost here. How we will prepare and handle the arising challenges is another matter.
References
Adams, R. (2017, January 10). 10 Powerful Examples of Artificial Intelligence in Use Today. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertadams/2017/01/10/10-powerful-examples-of-artificial-intelligence-in-use-today/#290bfb19420d
Alexander, J. (2019, January 30). Virtual creators aren’t AI – but AI is coming for them. Retrieved from https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/30/18200509/ai-virtual-creators-lil-miquela-instagram-artificial-intelligence
Christakis, N. A. (2019, March 04). How AI Will Rewire Us. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/04/robots-human-relationships/583204/
Munger, K. (2016). Tweetment Effects on the Tweeted: Experimentally Reducing Racist Harassment. Political Behavior, 39(3), 629-649. doi:10.1007/s11109-016-9373-5
Shieber, J. (2018, April 24). The makers of the virtual influencer, Lil Miquela, snag real money from Silicon Valley. Retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/23/the-makers-of-the-virtual-influencer-lil-miquela-snag-real-money-from-silicon-valley/
Wills, K. (2019, March 06). Meet Lil Miquela: The AI influencer taking over Instagram. Retrieved from https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/esmagazine/lil-miquela-ai-influencer-instagram-a4084566.html?fbclid=IwAR2l6itf1iOvr6zozmy9cjtGg61qUaTuhoPjVMbGtGVlRaVJbfcmr7zix48
Invisible Environments 
This post and the consequent contemplation on AI and humanity reminded me of a very recent article by Nikos Dimou, a writer, a great intellectual and a big tech enthusiast. He has been one of the most prominent Greek tech freaks in times when technology was just emerging in our everyday lives.
In the article I mention, he is writing about how suspicious and narrow-minded society has always been every time a new technological shift arose. The article talks about the demonisation of technology and every new trend or way of life derives from it. In any given era people were skeptical, critical and sometimes even hostile to technological evolution, but everything now is so incorporated in our lives that it is almost impossible to imagine a world without cinema, television, mobile phones and everything that once was a first for society. So, I assume the same thing is happening now. Though we live in an era that tech evolution is more radical and quicker than ever before, I guess that in some years from now we will also have adopted anything that now seems irrationally extreme. Personally, I would love to be able to have some AI friends in some time! 😉
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