Businesses are taking technology developments very seriously as the potential to unlock efficiencies, that seemingly can’t be matched by mere people power, are becoming very apparent. There's great interest that lies within financial services but beyond finance, one of the things I have been musing is how AI is now capable of generating very convincing video and audio after being trained on existing content, and whether there could be a potential new ‘asset’ on the way…  

Watching silly but very convincing (particularly without a discerning eye) AI-generated videos of Gareth Southgate discussing England’s exploits at last years’ Euros as well as prominent global politicians enjoying destroying each other's bases in Minecraft got me thinking – are we now at the stage where you could become immortalised as an AI virtual likeness? And if so, can we make investible assets out of them?

Another related event was watching David Attenborough presenting and narrating the latest Planet Earth series. Obviously not wanting to tempt fate, but I was thinking how sad it will be when Sir David is no longer with us, and if indeed he will be around to narrate Planet Earth IV.

Now combining all these together, could there ever be a world where Sir David (or the estate of) could sell / donate the rights to his voice and image (his ‘likeness’ so to speak) to the producers of Planet Earth so he could theoretically present the series indefinitely, or even beyond? Even with current publicly available technology, it’s possible to generate videos with convincing facial expressions and mouth movements to mimic spoken words; and it’s certainly possible to throw a script at a chat-bot to have it re-written in the same style of whoever you are wishing to imitate.  

The issue is going to be malice, and how to control it. Along with the positives of being able to essentially immortalise national treasures and heroes alike, there will always be people looking to use AI for bad. One example that springs to mind are the deepfakes – the kind that impacted Martin Lewis back in 2023 - AI-generated videos asking for people to send him money. While most people now could identify it as AI, a good number of people back then did end up falling for it. And this is also when AI is still in its relative infancy! In the future, could your AI likeness be used to sell / talk about things that you would not be comfortable with? Could Sir David ever be used against his real wishes around the widespread use of drastically reducing our reliance on plastics and climate change? Could global political leaders start using AI for malicious propaganda? I think we all know the gut answer.

And the bigger societal consideration, if we keep using the same AI generated personas (looks, mannerisms and voices) of iconic people, then what challenges does that pose in terms of making way for future, potentially brighter, talent.  

We are certainly entering uncharted waters with so much potential for great things to happen in the future with AI and AI-generated content. However, like with anything that looks good, it comes with shadows that need exploring as there is an equal potential for great harm and so we must think about how things can be managed in terms of legality, and whether we can get the whole world onboard. But could there be a value or investment potential be linked to it? Personally, I think absolutely.

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