[Lushh]

Japanese tech company Mawari Inc., in partnership with KDDI Corporation recently announced a Digital Human as a Service. This is a multilingual virtual assistant you'll see through your phone in augmented reality. By pointing your smartphone at physical world locations, the digital human will interact offering real-time assistance, such as navigation to certain points of interest and locating deals within specific stores.

If and when made available in your area, do you see yourself among those renting a holographic assistant?

[Netherrealmer]

Is the digital human a real human or an AI, if its AI.....

It looks like the movie "her" is going to come true. I can see some people will try to date their virtual assistant.

[Lushh]

Is the digital human a real human or an AI, if its AI.....

It looks like the movie "her" is going to come true. I can see some people will try to date their virtual assistant.

Not human but human-like avatar backed by AI.

Meet Sophie by Deloitte:


I saw that movie Her years ago and was left traumatized. The friend who I watched it with drilled it into my head that the idea would become reality, hence the movie. These things always start in the movies, right? One thing for sure is that the idea of humans having intimate relationships with operating systems is not as disturbing now as it was then.

[arunima]

I don't see myself in need of any more digital assistant than what I have now on my smartphone. But once the thing picks up, it would be everywhere and many will use it whether they really need it or not. Many of the technology advancements come more of a luxury and then they become so much a part of our daily lives that they become a necessity in no time. No one would have thought a need of smartphone two decades back but now life without it is unimaginable.
And yes, with technology advancing people are drifting away from each other and are getting lonely. So, it won't be surprising if people develop emotional attachments with these virtual assistants.

[Lushh]

But once the thing picks up, it would be everywhere and many will use it whether they really need it or not. Many of the technology advancements come more of a luxury and then they become so much a part of our daily lives that they become a necessity in no time. No one would have thought a need of smartphone two decades back but now life without it is unimaginable.

This is so true and it appears that the more dependent we become on these help, the less use we make of our own faculties. To some extent it even looks like we have lost it (can't get from one place to the next if the GPS navigator decides to malfunction). No sense of direction about anything it seems!

[Katrina]

I could see my husband using this because he's bad at directions and it sounds like this assistant would be more intuitive than Google maps. If my husband is out in a city where he's not sure about things, the assistant could offer valuable information to guide him, keep him safe from dangerous areas, and advise him there the best bars are.