Soon AI clones will be able to take our place on Zoom

We all know the story of Zoom: created in 2011 by Eric Yuan in California, it experienced impressive growth in 2020 due to the pandemic and lockdown rules imposed around the world. For months, meetings and school lessons were held via video call, and thus the platform found itself in a perfect storm. Although many of us have returned to a “normal” working life with face-to-face meetings, in several cases, we still find ourselves on Zoom, tied to a habit born in an extraordinary emergency. The future for the telecommunications company is clear, CEO Yuan explained in an interview with The Verge, and with the implementation of artificial intelligence, it will become even more so. They are working on a new technology, the founder explained, that would make our digital persona a clone: similar to a movie like Avatar, the next step for Zoom is to create “digital twins” that can entirely replace users.

According to what Yuan explained to The Verge, thanks to artificial intelligence, digital avatars will not only be able to attend meetings on our behalf while we deal with more important matters - see the meme “this meeting could have been an email” - but also make executive decisions without needing to consult us. «These are the basics of the ‘digital twin’» declares Yuan, «sometimes I want to join a call, and then I do. If I don’t want to, I can send a ‘digital twin’. This is the future.» One day not too far off, we might ask our AI alter ego to respond to messages and send voice notes on our behalf, talk on the phone and organize meetings. It will help us save a lot of time, explains Yuan, but also fill some gaps we are aware of. «Sometimes I know I’m not good at negotiations», the CEO shares. «I know my weak point, so I can tweak the parameters a bit.»

With the possibility of replicating and even achieving better performance at work, Zoom’s “digital twin” presents itself as a revolutionary initiative capable of completely disrupting the work world. If more automatic and simple tasks like responding to emails and attending meetings can be replaced by a robot with our same characteristics, how many jobs will cease to exist? While on one hand, being able to call on your “digital twin” to attend a boring Zoom meeting seems like a dream come true, on the other, we have already had a taste of the serious dangers posed by the world of deepfakes. Yuan states that the technology is still in the early stages of production, comparing today’s “digital twin” to the internet of 1995, but the moment when it will be possible to use it in everyday life is getting closer.