Creating a Multilingual Digital Twin with AI
Where It All Started: GPT & Ethics
Five years back, before everyone was talking about ChatGPT, I was digging into the earlier versions of GPT. My concern? The idea of letting AI write legal documents and outsource some of our ethical decision-making to an AI. It was a valid worry, and it kicked off my AI exploration.
In 2018, while working at the Collegium Helveticum in Zurich, I also explored the ethical implications of creating a digital copy of individuals: The MarcoPolo Time Machine.
“In the MarcoPolo Individual Time Machine project, we suggest that with today’s technologies, we could also digitalised stories of past individuals, but also of present individuals, creating Individual Time Machines (ITM)”
Voice Cloning: A Bumpy Ride
From the text-based world of GPT, I shifted gears to voice. My goal was simple: clone my voice for podcasts. But as a non-native English speaker, I quickly realized this wouldn’t be a walk in the park. The entire experience, with its ups and downs, is chronicled in this Medium article.
Unable to create a perfect voice clone, I had to pivot. Tools like Podcastle and play.ht came to the rescue. They offered synthetic voices that, while not a perfect replica, were good enough to convey my content.
The Next Frontier: Digital Lookalikes
Building on my voice cloning attempts at Conexkt, we decided to raise the stakes. Why stop at voice? Why not create a complete digital twin? This ambition led us to platforms like Synthesia, HeyGen, and D-ID. After some experimentation, HeyGen proved to be both practical and budget-friendly. The outcome of our efforts can be seen here:
Our collaboration with Synthesia bore fruit too, especially with a unique project at the Ardévaz School. We crafted a digital assistant professor that’s paving the way for education.
Digital Twins that speak different languages
With new developments popping up regularly, HeyGen’s recent feature deserves a shoutout. They’ve made it possible to translate avatar videos into 9 languages. Explore it on HeyGen Labs.
I gave it a spin, translating from French to English:
And so did a student at Ardévaz School in Switzerland:
The Takeaways
- Embrace the Test Phase: If at first you don’t succeed, tweak and try again.
- One Tool Doesn’t Rule Them All: Different challenges demand different AI solutions.
- Choose Wisely: With a plethora of AI tools out there, picking the right one is crucial.
- Ethics Isn’t Optional: As we push AI’s boundaries, ethical considerations should remain front and center.
- Let AI Handle the Mundane: Use technology to offload repetitive tasks and focus on what truly matters.
Closing Thoughts
My journey into AI, from questioning GPT’s capabilities to cloning my voice and creating a digital twin, has been filled with learning moments.
The promise of these technologies isn’t just about individual empowerment; it’s about elevating humanity. If AI can gift us back our time, it might just be one of the most profound tools we created.
