This episode is about the topic of digital twins. Have fun listening.
Further links
The Spiritme lifetime deal at Appsumo
Introduction
Nice to have you with us again for another episode of Digital4Productivity. And today it’s all about creating a digital twin. Identity theft isn’t particularly fun, but what you can do with AI is create your own clone, a digital clone of yourself. And until recently, this was only possible in a relatively rudimentary way. It was very complex, it was very expensive. The quality was really creepy and now you can do it extremely well. And in the field of artificial intelligence in particular, we’re noticing that the systems are getting exponentially better and exponentially cheaper at the same time.
And against this backdrop, artificial intelligence and tools such as these allow you to do things with minimal resources that were previously only possible with much, much greater resources. This is not a substitute, but a clear multiplication factor for people. For me, this is one of the biggest levers in this area, because there is always the discussion as to whether artificial intelligence will replace humans. In some areas, it certainly will. So if you have a job today where you have to somehow copy data from one system and paste it into another. Bad news, boxes can do that better. On the other hand, I do believe, as I said in my digital twin video, that you can create freedom with technology, that I can say I get more personal freedom by being able to cover many standards. Or if, for example, you offer video-based content in your country and perhaps can and want to offer it in other countries, then you can use AI to say that you now have a video and you can simply translate this video into another language. Or you have audio content like this audio podcast, for example, which will probably also be available as a video podcast in the future. And now I don’t have to set up my video studio for this, but I can simply say that the audio transcript goes into this digital avatar service once and it generates a video for me with my avatar.
What tools are available on the market?
Yes, which service do I work with? I have various services or regularly test various services. And you know, I always say that digital know-how is one thing, but digital do-how is much more important. And I’m noticing that with AI right now. After 80 million soccer coaches, 80 million virologists and 80 million metaverse experts, there are now 80 million self-proclaimed AI experts. And when I often ask, yes, what tools do you really work with on a daily basis, the air becomes very thin. Yes, I really do use AI myself on a daily basis. Let me give you a few examples of what I use it for.
On the one hand, I have several software, several apps in the AppStore and support is now very large, largely organized via chatbots. This is also a wonderful opportunity where you can build your own chatbots with ChatBase AI, for example.
The next thing I use very intensively is the classic ChatGPT. But again, how many of you are already using ChatGPT 4, i.e. the paid version? And who works with the right prompts there? For example, I really, really like to use it when I need ideas for presentation titles, to say I’ll put two or three presentation titles in here that I have in mind. I say for which client is this, for which industry? I say ChatGPT, you are this and that, that’s the goal, that’s the idea. And I recently had a request where the motto of the event was supposed to be James Bond-like. And then I said, gosh, just give me some lecture titles that have some similarities to James Bond titles, preferably as puns. And I came up with some great titles that I wouldn’t have thought of. Of course, you can’t come up with anything sensible if you just say, give me ten lecture titles on this topic, you have to brief it sensibly. But this also has parallels in the real human world. Ideally, you should switch on your brain first, then the technology.
Yes, if you want to clone yourself, I’m working with Spirit Me there. Here’s a complementary tip for those who are listening to this episode relatively close to the time. AppSumo is currently offering a lifetime deal. AppSumo is a platform where you can always or very often book lifetime deals for services that normally cost a subscription. And there are usually three levels here. The first level allows you to record 15 minutes of video per month. In the second, you can record 60 minutes and in the third, you can record 120 minutes of video per month. The big advantage of the third tier, which costs 329 USD, is that you can also create your own personal avatar. And that is very interesting, because the idea is that you can build your own personal avatar, both as an image, i.e. as a video, and as sound. How does that work? It works in such a way that you have an iPhone app that is made available by Spirit Me in the AppStore. When you open it, it’s a bit like when you go through the biometric passport checks at the airport. In other words, you can see how you should position yourself so that you are easily recognized. And then it’s best to take your iPhone with the selfie camera, set up a tripod in front of you and then stand in front of a white wall or I did it in front of my green screen so that you can be cropped afterwards. And then you have to talk for a net five minutes. In my case it was eight minutes gross, because I wasn’t always completely visible to the system. So you have five minutes to speak. It doesn’t matter what you say. The only important thing is that you look into the camera, that you look as friendly as possible, that you move your lips as clearly as possible and that you occasionally pause to close your lips again. When you’ve finished, which in my case was after eight minutes, the app uploads the whole thing. That’s 122 files for me. That’s quite a lot of wood. You also need a bit of an internet connection. And then five days later you get your own avatar in your account alongside the avatars that are there, female and male avatars. With the voice. You don’t have to do that, but you can. Upload a five-minute audio file there. I simply took one of my podcast episodes here and uploaded it. And then you get an avatar after five working days and then you have templates and can practically say with these templates, so, which templates would you like? You can then add text, use your avatar with your voice and then enter the text and say what language the whole thing is in and you can also listen to the whole thing. Of course, it’s not 100% like in real life, but I’m a big fan of labeling AI-generated content anyway. So there is also this accompanying ethical discussion and I always think it’s important not to demonize the tool when it comes to AI, but how you deal with it.
For me, it’s a bit like using a kitchen knife. I can cook or kill with a kitchen knife. And I can also create value with AI. Or I can also do dangerous things with it. The tool itself is not malicious, but the person using it is.
Yes, as I said, you record it and then you can use it. The nice thing is that it’s always optional and you can use the color of the background in the templates as you wish and then you can either build the whole thing with their tool, with the templates, with the texts or you can simply say that the background is simply a green screen. And then you have a shot with a green screen behind it and you can then edit it again afterwards in the software of your choice so that you can use it again at any time and also use it as a cut-out. Both are possible. So I’ve looked at various services. I think the quality of this service is very good. They are also very responsive. They also respond quickly if you have a question. And you can either simply download the finished videos yourself, which you can design there, or if you do the whole thing with a green screen, then you can simply say yes, I’ll incorporate that into other things.
Yes, as I said, I will use it to make audio content available again as a video, so that I can have German tutorial videos in English again if necessary. Audio content, but also video content, so I think it’s really good for that. If you need to make a video quickly and you’re not near a studio, but somewhere on the road, then you can do something like that and then it’s sometimes better to have something like that there than the very, very poor quality that you have somewhere else. Yes, the good thing is, and that’s why it’s so important, as you know, sound is always more important than images, that you ideally upload a high-quality sound recording. As I said, I uploaded one of my podcast recordings there, which I recorded with a professional microphone. When you record the whole thing, remember that if you usually work with a microphone, you don’t have this microphone in the picture, otherwise you would practically always have it in the picture with your avatar. That would be rather irritating. I shot the video in such a way that I didn’t have a microphone right in front of my nose because it wasn’t needed for the technical realization.
Yes, if you go to the show notes for this episode, you’ll also find another example of what the whole thing looks like. I’ve put my English video here. I’ve also included a making of video here. Also all the links to AppSumo for this deal. If this AppSumo deal is no longer available, I recommend that you subscribe to the AppSumo newsletter, because there are always really good tips, and secondly, even if it is not available as a lifetime theme, I recommend that you take a look at Spirit Me. Every now and then, lifetime deals come back. And you should always pay attention if you also use another service like Synthesia, for example, which is a competition service, you always have to look at how long I can record, how many videos I can make and can I use it for commercial purposes. That’s when these services often become expensive, often at USD 200 per month, and then the price of USD 326 for Lifetime or USD 329 for Lifetime becomes significantly more relative.
Yes, if you buy from AppSumo frequently, the AppSumo Plus membership is also worthwhile.
This means that you pay USD 99 per year and get a 10% discount on all your purchases. As I often buy things from AppSumo, the whole thing is worthwhile. If you only do it once a year, then it’s not worth it.
Conclusion
Yes, I hope this is an example for you on this topic of how AI can be used sensibly. Because in my view, this really is such an important topic that you don’t just read about artificial intelligence or go into it with common sense knowledge, but also consider as a company how you can use it to significantly increase the productivity of the organization.
My assistant, who is also listening to this now, hello dear Dr. Džunda, who is also uploading this episode as a blog post, also asked me recently, dear Mr. Jekel, am I superfluous as your assistant in the future? And I say no, you are not. And I expect you to become significantly more productive if you also use the AI tools. So there is a productivity booster here and neither my assistant nor your employees will be replaced by AI, but they will be significantly more productive. And especially at times when it’s not so easy to get skilled workers, it can also help to be able to compensate for positions that can no longer be filled by using AI. Or, to put it the other way around, how can I generate significantly more turnover with the same staff, for example, i.e. scale up – 10x is the keyword here: exponential organizations. I will be happy to talk about this in one of the next podcasts.
So here is a tool with which you can scale up significantly.
Yes, the topic of AI is also one where I am happy to be at your disposal. Firstly, as a speaker for your events, where I explain from digital know-how to digital do-how what AI is, what AI can do and what it can’t do yet. What great tools are available for what purposes, and then I also show your participants hands-on what they can do accordingly.
Another form of support is, if you are a board member, CEO, board member, entrepreneur, then I would also be happy to accompany you once with the topic of really compact management know-how in the main IT areas and also as a sparring partner, so that you can really hold your own against your IT managers, against your fellow board members and against your board at eye level and not only hold your own, but also become even more efficient and effective.
Yes, if this is an important topic for you, feel free to send me an e-mail at t.jekel@jekelteam.de and I would be delighted to have you back next week to discuss the topic of Digital 4 Productivity.
Yours, Thorsten Jekel.
Also available in: Deutsch
