Luka Doncic is involved with a new AI project, and it’s extremely creepy.
Let’s be honest, we’re barrelling toward a dystopian reality ruled by artificial intelligence, aren’t we? Or, maybe we are already objects of a simulation ourselves… Well, apparently, our current reality already has alternate versions of Luka Doncic.
Doncic’s TikTok is being taken over by “Luk.Ai”, which is a “digital likeness” of Doncic himself.
The digital version of Luka is being housed on TikTok, and will apparently learn from the community and be shaped by Luk.Ai’s followers. It’s unclear how unhinged this will be, exactly.
The likeness is being created in Unreal Engine 5 according to ESPN, which is known to create extremely realistic and in-depth virtual worlds. The same engine was used to create an extremely realistic demo video game based around The Matrix universe.
Luk.Ai looks disturbingly real:
@lukadoncici am awake now please give me suggestions how to tiktok. who do i watch? what do I create?♬ Blade Runner 2049 – Synthwave Goose
Luka Doncic AI experiment could be unique way to connect with fans… Or a very big mistake
Celebrity athletes only have so many hours in a day between workouts, games, press availability, and any other work or leisure activities they might be engaged in. While most players probably want to engage with fans, some don’t have as much time as they would like.
So why not let a robot do it for you? That’s pretty much the experimental objective here, and it could work out…
On the other hand, having a semi-sentient digital representation of a real person that looks way too real learning from TikTok of all places could go disastrously bad. Pretty soon this thing is going to know all the dances. Let’s just hope it doesn’t start cooking chicken in NyQuil, because the FDA has said to not.
Here’s what Doncic said, h/t ESPN:
“Fans can get to know him and help to make him smarter by engaging with him,” Doncic said. “He’ll reply to their comments, listen to their ideas and create videos with them, too.”
“Smarter” and “TikTok” in the same sentence? We’ll see!
There is a noble basis to the idea here, and the idea was sparked in part by Mark Cuban’s involvement with artificial intelligence.
“He’ll be playing an important role with my foundation — which is all about the positive role of play for kids — and he’ll be partnering with Mark Cuban’s AI boot camps to help teach kids about AI technology. Technology education is so important.”
It’s interesting if nothing else. If you see Luka out in public you might want to make sure it’s really him.