Listening To The Future

Digital Humans & Soul Machines

November 03, 2020 Jarno Duursma Season 2 Episode 26
Listening To The Future
Digital Humans & Soul Machines
Show Notes

What is a digital human? Why would anyone need one at any given point in time?  What are the most common usecases for the digital human? How autonomously can the digital humans have a conversation? What moral questions does this technological development raise? Which jobs are digital humans going to take over from us? 

Guest of today is Una Softic. She is Vice President of Soul Machines. The Company Soul Machines is creating emotionally-responsive, hyperrealistic, autonomously-animated digital people. They call themselves a “A Digital People company.” As noted, they create lifelike, AI-powered, customer-facing digital avatars. Soul Machines currently has over 150 employees with offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, Tokyo and Auckland. Una and I got introduced by our mutual partners at IBM Benelux. She is also a speaker at the IBM Cloud & AI Summit on November 19 & 20. If you want to be part of this event: check the shownotes on jarnoduursma.nl/podcast. In the past, Una was Head of Innovation Nikkei in Tokyo, Japan.