【中英双语】人类面孔AI心

  AI with a Human Face
The case for—and against—digital employees      
迈克·西摩（Mike Seymour）丹·洛瓦洛（Dan Lovallo）、卡伊·里默尔（Kai Riemer）、

艾伦·丹尼斯（Alan R. Dennis）、袁玲瑶（Ling Yao Ivy Yuan，音译）| 文      

All companies want to give their customers richer and more engaging experiences. That’s one of the most effective ways to create and sustain competitive advantage. The challenge is to offer those experiences at scale without depersonalizing or commodifying them.

所有企业都希望为客户提供更丰富诱人的体验。这是创造和保持竞争优势的最有效方法之一。难度在于，如何在不失个性化或不使其廉价商品化的条件下，大规模提供这些体验。

Throwing people at the problem becomes prohibitively expensive very quickly. And even if a company had enough employees to offer individual service at scale, in many situations customers prefer to interact with someone of their own gender, age, or ethnic background—an impossible staffing task. Moreover, research suggests that humans do not always produce the best results for every job. For example, Deloitte UK found that human-staffed contact centers are not only more expensive to run but often deliver a less consistent customer experience than automated channels—and they sometimes generate negative customer-service experiences.

让员工来解决这个问题的代价很快就会过于高昂。即使一家公司有足够的员工提供大规模的个人服务，在许多情况下，客户却更喜欢与性别、年龄或种族背景相仿的人互动——这种人员配置任务不可能实现。此外，研究表明，并不是所有工作都是人类做得效果最好。比如，德勤英国发现，与自动化渠道相比，人工联络中心不仅运营成本更高，提供的客户体验通常也不太一致，有时还会造成负面的客户服务体验。

Enter the digital human. Rapid progress in computer graphics, coupled with advances in artificial intelligence (AI), is now putting humanlike faces on chatbots and other computer-based interfaces. Digital humans mimic human communication as they offer a range of services: Companies are currently using them as sales assistants, corporate trainers, and social media influencers, for example. When deployed at scale, digital humans will radically change the business landscape. They may not be as capable or versatile as human employees, but they have clear advantages when it comes to cost, customizability, and scalability. Once “hired,” they never tire, never complain, never seek a raise, and always follow company policy.

数字虚拟人物登场。计算机图形学的快速发展和人工智能的进步，正在开始为聊天机器人和其他基于计算机的界面赋予类似人类的面孔。虚拟人物在提供一系列服务时会模仿人类的交流：比如，企业目前正在用它们担任销售助理、企业培训师和“网红”角色。得到大规模部署时，数字虚拟人物将从根本上改变商业格局。它们可能不像人类员工那样有能力或多才多艺，可是在论及成本、可定制性和可扩展性时，它们具有明显优势。一旦“被雇用”，它们永不疲倦，永不抱怨，永远不会要求加薪，并且会始终遵守公司政策。

Digital humans are already making real money for their employers. Soul Machines, an autonomous animation software company, has upwards of 50 digital humans deployed in organizations around the world. According to cofounder Mark Sagar, one client in the cosmetics industry, whose digital sales assistant recommends and models products and engages with customers about how to use them, has seen sales conversion rates increase dramatically. Visitors to the client’s websites are now four and a half times more likely to complete the entire transaction and make a purchase than they were before digital sales assistants were employed.

虚拟人已经为雇主真金白银地赚到了钱。Soul Machines是一家自主动画软件公司，在全球的企业中部署了50多个虚拟人物。联合创始人马克·萨加尔（Mark Sagar）称，化妆品行业的一个客户的数字销售助手可以推荐产品，提供产品模型，并与客户讨论用法，从而大幅提升了销售转化率。访问这家化妆品网站的人中，现在完成整个交易和购物的可能性是利用数字销售助手之前的4.5倍。

For the past seven years we have been observing and researching the emerging field of digital humans, drawing on our decades of experience in the visual effects industry. We have worked alongside and consulted on projects with companies that create digital humans, including Pinscreen, Soul Machines, and Epic Games, witnessing firsthand the enormous growth and advances in the field. Within a decade, we believe, managers at most companies are likely to have a digital human as an assistant or an employee.

过去七年，我们一直在基于视觉效果行业几十年的经验，观察和研究新兴的虚拟人物领域。我们与Pinscreen、Soul Machines和Epic Games等创造数字虚拟人物的公司合作，并为其提供项目咨询，亲眼见证了这一领域的巨大发展和进步。我们相信，十年内，大多数企业的管理者都很可能会有虚拟人物担任的助理或员工。

In this article we explain how different types of digital humans interact with customers and employees, discuss the situations in which using a digital human is appropriate, and present examples of digital employees working in organizations as diverse as accounting giant EY, Yahoo Japan, the Arab Banking Corporation, and the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine.

本文中，我们解释了不同类型的虚拟人物如何与客户和员工互动，探讨了适合使用数字虚拟人物的各种情形，并介绍了数字员工在会计业巨头安永、雅虎日本（Yahoo Japan）、 阿拉伯银行公司 （Arab Banking Corporation）和南加州大学凯克医学院（University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine）等不同机构工作的例子。

What Is a Digital Human?

什么是数字虚拟人物？

Meet Lil Miquela, a virtual online influencer with nearly 3 million followers on Instagram. The followers fully understand that she is not a real person—just as they know that Alexa and Siri are not “real.” What they relate to is Lil Miquela’s “authentic” and “genuine” personality, according to Isaac Bratzel, the chief design and innovation officer at Brud, the software media company that created Lil Miquela. Her personality is expressed through the products she endorses and the experiences she posts about.

让我们来认识一下利尔·米克拉（Lil Miquela），一个在Instagram上拥有近300万粉丝的虚拟网红。粉丝们完全明白她不是一个真实的人，就像他们知道Alexa（亚马逊人工智能助手）和Siri（苹果智能语音助手）不是“真实存在”一样。按照创建利尔·米克拉的软件媒体公司Brud的首席设计与创新官艾萨克·布拉特泽尔（Isaac Bratzel）的说法，他们关心的是利尔·米克拉“真实”与“真诚”的个性，而她的个性会通过她宣传的产品和发布的体验表现出来。

Why do we ascribe a personality to what we know is an artificial construct? Because we can’t help but respond instinctively to anything that appears to be human. Research from neuroscience shows that our minds are attuned to and react emotionally to facial signals. That’s why most people prefer to communicate face-to-face rather than over the telephone. In the case of digital humans, we know that what we see on the screen is an artificial construct, but we still connect instinctively to it, and we do not have to be computer experts to interpret the facial signals and make the exchange work properly.

为何明知是人为创造的东西，我们还要赋予它个性？因为我们会忍不住对所有人类模样的东西本能地做出反应。神经科学的研究表明，我们的大脑习惯于面部信号，并会对其做出情感反应。这就是大多数人更喜欢面对面交流而非电话交流的原因。就数字人物而言，我们知道在屏幕上看到的是人为制造品，但我们仍然本能地与之建立联系，我们不必成为计算机专家，就能理解面部信号，并与其正常交流。

Digital humans are thus more likely to provide a meaningful experience than other automated channels, and customers are more likely to extend interactions with them beyond their initial search or transaction. Hao Li, cofounder and CEO of Pinscreen, a Los Angeles–based creator of digital humans, explains: “You want the customer to [explore] how things [like clothes] could be and how they might like them to look. From a user experience standpoint, you want to keep them engaged and able to explore the brand.”

因此，与其他自动化渠道相比，虚拟人物更有可能提供有意义的体验，客户也更有可能在最初搜索或交易后继续与其互动。总部位于洛杉矶的虚拟人物创造企业Pinscreen的联合创始人及CEO黎颢解释道：“你期待让客户去探索服装等产品可以是什么样，以及他们可能希望这些东西是什么样。从用户体验的角度出发，你会希望让他们参与进来，并且能够探索这个品牌。”

Fashion company ZOZOtown agrees. Now part of Yahoo Japan following a $3.7 billion acquisition in 2019, ZOZOtown controls about 50% of the market for mid- to high-end fashion e-commerce in Japan. With Pinscreen’s help, ZOZOtown has deployed a group of remarkably lifelike digital humans to model fashion online and aid in customer fittings.

时尚集团ZOZOtown与此看法一致。2019年以37亿美元被收购后，ZOZOtown现在是雅虎日本的一部分，控制着日本中高端时装电子商务市场约50%的份额。在Pinscreen的帮助下，ZOZOtown已经部署了一批极其逼真的虚拟人物担任线上时装模特，并协助客户试穿。

Another early adopter is EY, which creates digital-human doubles of its partners for use in video clips. The technology’s translation function lets users make versions of presentations in multiple languages, regardless of whether the presenter speaks them or not. Advertising and communications company WPP has used the technology to send out internal corporate videos in different languages, all made without cameras. Victor Riparbelli, cofounder and CEO of Synthesia, the company that creates digital humans for EY and WPP, says that his firm’s platform generates more than 3,000 videos for enterprise customers every day. “It is transformational to enable anyone in the company to produce uniform, on-brand video content for everything from internal training to personalized sales prospecting,” he says.

另一个早期用户是安永，它为合作伙伴创建了虚拟人物替身，用于视频短片。该技术的翻译功能让用户可以制作多种语言版本的演示文稿，无论演示者是否会说这些语言。广告与传播公司WPP已利用该技术发送了不同语言的企业内部视频，都没有用到摄像机。为安永和WPP创建数字虚拟人物的Synthesia公司的联合创始人与CEO维克托·里帕尔贝利（Victor Riparbelli）表示，公司的平台每天会为企业客户生成3000多个视频。“无论是为了内部培训，还是个性化的销售前景，让公司里的所有人都能制作统一、符合品牌的视频内容，是具有变革性质的。”他表示。

Companies can create their own simple digital humans for a range of purposes—to make video clips, for instance—by subscribing to or buying licenses from Synthesia or other platform vendors. Users choose a digital human from a gallery of options and apply a simple text script or incorporate it into automated digital channels. If a fully interactive, intelligent digital human is needed, firms will most likely need to partner with a specialist.

企业可以通过订阅或购买Synthesia或其他平台供应商的许可权，为制作视频剪辑等目的创建自己的简单的虚拟人物。用户可以从选项库中选择一个虚拟人物，应用一个简单的文本脚本，或将其带入自动化数字渠道。需要一个完全互动的智能虚拟人物时，企业则可能需要与专家合作。

When Should You Deploy Digital Humans?

何时部署虚拟人物？

Digital humans are not appropriate for every application. When customers seek a quick transaction, they are likely to prefer traditional user interfaces, chatbots, and voice-only assistants such as Siri or Alexa. But digital humans can be a much better choice when it comes to communicating complex instructions or describing features of a product. This is why YouTube instruction videos—rather than pages of text—are so successful. Someone searching for clothes online might welcome seeing the outfit on someone who looks like them to get a feel for how the items go together and whether the look reflects who they are. In such cases a digital human will engage the customer more, help complete the sale, and reduce the likelihood of product returns.

虚拟人物并不适用于所有应用。当客户寻求快速交易时，他们可能更喜欢传统的用户界面、聊天机器人以及Siri或Alexa这样的语音助手。不过涉及沟通复杂的指令或描述产品特征时，虚拟人物可能是更好的选择。这就是YouTube教学视频——而不是一页页的文本——如此成功的原因。在网上搜索服装的人可能喜欢看到与自己相似的人穿着那套衣服，感受一下衣物整体搭配，以及能否反映自身个性。这些情况下，虚拟人物会更加吸引顾客，帮助完成销售，并降低退货的可能性。

These questions will help you determine if a digital human is a good fit for the job you have in mind:

以下问题有助于你确认虚拟人物是否适合你想做的工作：

1. Does the interaction involve emotional engagement? A humanlike face will better address emotional aspects of an interaction, such as providing reassurance or empathy.

1. 互动是否涉及情感参与？一张像人一样的面孔会更好地解决互动中情感方面的问题，比如提供安抚或共情。

2. Are users unsure of exactly what they want from the interaction? If customers need specific information, then normally they are keen to see the details in written form so that they can quickly digest them. But if they are unsure, scanning pages of text is painful and time-consuming, and they often prefer to be able to ask for help.

2. 用户是否不确定自己希望从互动中获得什么？如果客户需要具体信息，那么他们通常会渴望看到书面形式的细节，以快速消化知识。但不确定时，浏览一页页的文字就痛苦又耗时，他们通常会更希望寻求帮助。

3. Is there scope to explore options and consider different approaches or outcomes? Unlike straightforward online transactions such as buying groceries or booking a movie ticket, interactions such as shopping for clothes or working with a career coach have open-ended trajectories involving give-and-take. When speed isn’t the primary requirement, consumers often like to linger and explore.

3. 是否有余地考察各种选项及考虑不同的要求或结果？与购买杂货或预订电影票等直接的在线交易不同，买衣服或与职业教练合作之类的互动具有开放式的轨迹，涉及意见交换。速度不是首要需求时，消费者通常会喜欢逗留和探索。

4. Could the user benefit from a personalized explanation of a product or service? Is there value in demonstrating some key aspect? If the answer is yes to three or more questions, it is worth exploring a digital-human option; if they are all true, it most definitely is.

4. 用户能否从对产品或服务的个性化解释中受益？展示某些关键方面是否有价值？如果对以上三个或以上的问题回答是肯定的，就值得考虑选择虚拟人物；如果这些问题全都符合事实，那就绝对值得选择。（参见图表“虚拟人物是正确选择吗？”）

What Kind of Digital Human Is Best for You?

什么样的虚拟人物最适合你？

If the conditions are appropriate for deploying a digital human, the next step is to figure out what kind of digital human to design. First, consider the purpose of the interaction: Is the primary goal to complete a task or to engage in an experience? In many use cases, customers want to accomplish a task with measurable outcomes. Examples include booking airline tickets, filing a complaint, and retrieving order information. In others, customers want to engage with the company in some way—for example, by browsing through an online store, enjoying entertainment, or having a therapy session.

条件合适的情况下，下一步就是弄清楚设计什么样的虚拟人物。首先，要考虑互动的目的：首要目标是完成一项任务还是融入一种体验？许多用例中，客户希望完成一项结果可以衡量的任务，比如预订机票、提出投诉和检索订单信息。其他用例中，客户则希望以某种方式与公司接洽，比如浏览网店，娱乐，或接受心理治疗。

Second, consider the depth of the interaction: Is it personalized to each customer? In some cases, a person has regular exchanges with the same digital human, which “learns” and “remembers” the customer and becomes more and more personalized over time. In other cases, regardless of whether the interaction is transactional in nature or experiential, no personal relationship is developed between a specific customer and a specific digital human.

其次，要考虑互动深度：互动是否对每个客户个性化？某些情况下，一个人会与同一个虚拟人物定期交流，虚拟人物会“学习”并“记住”客户，随着时间推移越来越个性化。其他情况下，无论互动是实际交互还是体验性质，特定客户和特定虚拟人物间都没有发展出私人关系。

Mapping these two factors on a 2×2 matrix produces four categories of digital humans.

如果将这两个因素绘制到一个2×2的矩阵上，会产生四类虚拟人物（参见图表“四种类型的虚拟人物”）。

Virtual agent. A virtual agent serves multiple users and does not develop a personal relationship with them. The agent’s role is to complete specific, onetime tasks. For companies already using chatbots, virtual customer-service agents may be the logical next step. They have all the advantages of chatbots and amplify them through their realistic humanlike appearance. They can respond in any language and can tailor their appearance to the background or ethnicity of each customer.

虚拟代理人。一个虚拟代理人会为多个用户服务，且不与客户建立私人关系。代理人的作用是完成特定、一次性的任务。对于已经在使用聊天机器人的企业而言，虚拟客服也许正符合下一步逻辑。他们具备聊天机器人的所有优点，并会通过逼真的人形外观将这些优点放大。他们可以用任意语言回应，并可以根据每位客户的背景或种族量身定制外观。

Companies are also using digital instructors to engage employees in various types of training. Synthesia provides organizations with platforms for generating videos or professional presentations using noninteractive digital humans, obviating the need for actors, film crews, or expensive equipment. At U.S. international airports, for example, you may encounter a digital human giving instructions on how to clear security. Such videos can be developed directly from written text with text-to-speech tools. Victor Riparbelli sees real demand here: “If you are a warehouse worker and you get the choice between reading a five-page PDF manual or watching a two-minute video, it’s a no-brainer. They don’t care about how it was created.” Not only are the videos less expensive and less time-consuming to create, he says, employees prefer the experience and remember more of the content.

企业也在使用数字讲师，让员工参与各类培训。Synthesia就为组织提供了可以生成使用非交互式虚拟人物的视频或专业演示文稿的平台，无需演员、摄制组或昂贵的设备。比如在美国的国际机场，你就可能会遇到一个虚拟人物指导乘客如何通过安检。通过文本转语音工具，可以直接从书面文本中制作出类似视频。维克托·里帕尔贝利看到了其中的真正需求：“如果你是一名仓库工人，你可以选择阅读五页的PDF手册，还是观看两分钟的视频，答案显而易见。他们不会在乎视频是如何制作的。”他表示，这些视频制作起来不仅成本更低、耗时更短，而且员工更喜欢这种体验，能记住的内容也更多。

A more sophisticated form of virtual agent is the digital patient, which the University of Southern California is researching for use in training the next generation of doctors and mental health professionals. Digital humans can simulate patients experiencing specific symptoms with a high degree of fidelity and realism. For example, they are capable of mimicking flushing, breathing responses, facial responses, slurred speech, and symptoms of PTSD or brain injury. Health care organizations could hire actors instead, but that approach cannot easily be scaled up and quality is inconsistent. Digital patients also provide reliable measurements for training outcomes, such as which symptoms are recognized or missed.

形式更复杂的一种虚拟代理人是数字患者（digital patient），南加州大学正在研究将其用于培训下一代医生和心理健康专业人士。数字人物可以高度精确逼真地模拟有特定症状的患者。比如他们能够模仿脸红、呼吸反应、面部反应、口齿不清，以及创伤后应激障碍或脑损伤的症状。医疗机构可以雇用演员代替，但这种方法不容易被大规模实施，质量也不稳定。数字患者还为培训结果提供了可靠的衡量手段，比如哪些症状得到了识别或遭到忽略。

Virtual assistant. This type of digital human supports the user in completing specific tasks, and over time they develop a personal relationship. There are many types of virtual assistants: personal shoppers, home organizers, and physical therapists, to name a few.

虚拟助手。这类虚拟人物可以支持用户完成特定任务，并会逐渐发展私人关系。虚拟助手的类型有许多，比如购物顾问、家居整理和理疗师等等。

Digital Domain, best known for creating digital characters for the Disney Marvel films, is developing digital assistants for Zoom, the video communications company. Its digital human Zoey, for example, attends Zoom meetings and monitors the conversation. Zoey can be cued to join the conversation by the phrase “Hey, Zoey” and deactivated by “Thank you, Zoey.”

因替迪士尼漫威（Disney Marvel）电影创造数字角色而最为出名的数字王国（Digital Domain）公司，正在为视频通信公司Zoom开发数字助手。比如，它的数字虚拟人佐伊（Zoey）会参加Zoom会议并监控对话，可以通过“嘿，佐伊”的提示加入会话，以及“谢谢你，佐伊”来停止对话。

While activated, the assistant can answer questions and arrange schedules. Because Zoey has an active monitoring memory, she can associate comments and personal profiles with specific meeting attendees. Zoey can translate conversations into text documents and produce meeting summaries. She also analyzes the meeting content with natural language processing, especially sentiment analysis, and responds with appropriate facial expressions and micromovements, such as nods and eye glances, demonstrating her attentiveness and engagement.

被激活时，这名助手可以回答问题并安排日程。由于佐伊有一个主动监测存储器，她可以将评论和个人档案与特定的与会者关联起来。佐伊还可以将会话翻译成文本文件并制作会议纪要。她还可以用自然语言处理，特别是通过情感分析，来分析会议内容，并以适当的面部表情以及点头和眼神等细小动作做出回应，展现她的专注和参与。

Another example comes from a study of military veterans, which found that many people prefer to provide personal or sensitive information to a digital assistant. In the study, veterans wanted their doctors to know about problems they were experiencing but were reluctant to speak openly about their issues. They found that describing their symptoms to a digital-human assistant felt less intimidating and allowed them to communicate the information in a way that was more comfortable for them.

另一个例子来自一项对退伍军人的研究。研究发现，许多人喜欢向数字助理提供个人或敏感信息。这项研究中，退伍军人希望医生了解自己正在面对的问题，却不愿意坦诚谈论自己的问题。他们发现，向虚拟助理描述自己的症状感觉没那么可怕，而且他们可以用自己更舒适的方式表达信息。

Digital humans are also often preferred in other contexts, such as education, human resource management, and dispute resolution. That’s partly because they do not get angry, impatient, or distracted and can moderate their tone and speed of speech to match users’ needs.

虚拟人物在以下其他情况中通常也是首选，比如教育、人力资源管理和调解纠纷。部分原因在于它们不会生气、心急或分心，并且可以调节语气和语速来满足用户需求。

Of course, virtual assistants cannot replace humans for complex, nuanced interactions, such as explaining a serious illness or detecting mental health issues, because they lack any true understanding of what is being communicated. The digital human may question a person on a topic and react to a range of responses, but it never “thinks” in any real sense of the word.

当然，虚拟助手不能取代人类进行复杂细腻的互动，比如解释严重的疾病或检测心理健康问题，因为它们缺乏对交流内容的真正理解。虚拟人物可能就某一话题向人提出质疑，并对一系列回复做出反应，但它从未在任何真正意义上“思考”过。

Virtual influencer. Virtual influencers supply their human followers with experiences, but they are not personalized. Everyone sees the same content on social media, for example. Although virtual influencers are carefully designed to appeal to specific user segments, any relationship a person might feel with them stems from that person’s projection and not from any individual customization.

虚拟网红。虚拟网红为人类粉丝提供了相关体验，但这些体验并不是个性化的。比如，每个人在社交媒体上看到的是相同的内容。虽然虚拟网红经过了精心设计，以吸引特定的细分用户群体，但一个人可能感受到的与虚拟网红的任何关系，可能都源于对这个人的预设，而不是任何个性化定制。

Virtual influencers operate in much the same way that human ones do. They share images of their experiences and post virtual photos of themselves having a great time somewhere wonderful in order to market a company’s products. They have two key advantages over their human counterparts: They are much cheaper and require far less management. The people who follow them have no problem with the fact that the influencers aren’t real because it is the experiences that they care about.

虚拟网红的运营方式与真实网红大致相同。为了推销公司的产品，他们会分享自己的使用图，发布自己在某个美妙的地方度过美好时光的虚拟照片。与人类同行相比，它们具有两个关键优势：成本远远更低，需要的管理也少得多。关注它们的人对这些网红并非真人的事实并没有意见，因为他们在乎的是体验。

Virtual influencers have been especially successful in the fashion industry: Lil Miquela’s carefully curated online presence has helped Brud achieve a valuation of more than $125 million prior to being acquired by Dapper Labs. ZOZOtown also deploys a range of virtual influencers to help market the company’s products.

虚拟网红在时装界尤其成功：利尔·米克拉被精心策划的网络形象帮助Brud在被Dapper Labs收购前，实现了超过1.25亿美元的估值。ZOZOtown也部署了一系列虚拟网红来帮助营销公司的产品。

In the Middle East, Soul Machines has created a digital celebrity in Fatema, the public face of Bahrain-based Arab Banking Corporation. She was one of the first virtual, AI-enabled customer agents to humanize financial information. She talks to customers and responds, providing a humanlike presence. As a virtual influencer, Fatema is involved in Bank ABC’s social media efforts and has a presence on Instagram aimed at helping customers feel more connected to the bank and learn about new offerings.

在中东，Soul Machines创造了一个数字名人，即总部位于巴林的阿拉伯银行的公众人物法特玛（Fatema）。她是第一批虚拟的、有人工智能加持的客户代理之一，以实现金融信息人性化。她会与客户交谈并做出回应，扮演类似人类的角色。身为虚拟网红，法特玛会参与阿拉伯银行的社交媒体工作，并活跃于Instagram，目的是帮助客户感到与银行联系更密切，并了解新产品。

Virtual companion. A virtual companion develops a deeply personal relationship with the user. Rather than focusing on completing tasks, the primary goal is simply to be with the user. Like a digital assistant, a virtual companion does not get frustrated or bored and has no competing demands on its time.

虚拟陪伴。虚拟陪伴会与用户建立深厚的私人关系。其主要目的不是专注于完成任务，而只是与用户待在一起。与数字助手一样，虚拟陪伴自身不会沮丧或无聊，也不存在时间冲突问题。

A promising application is in eldercare. Virtual companions enable older people to stay in their homes longer, which is known to be better for their physical and mental health. They are also much cheaper than assisted living or nursing homes. Digital humans not only provide companionship to stave off isolation, they also remind people to take their medication, facilitate communications, and alert medical professionals in case of emergency.

一个有广阔应用前景的领域是照顾老年人。虚拟陪伴让老年人能够更长时间待在自己家里，众所周知，这对他们的身体和精神健康更有益处，价格与辅助生活社区或养老院相比也低得多。虚拟人物不仅可以提供陪伴，避免孤独，还会提醒人们吃药，促进沟通，并在紧急情况下向专业医疗人士发出警报。

Similar opportunities exist in education. Children are more engaged when they watch other children. Thus a child-aged digital instructor could, at times, be a more effective tutor than a human adult teacher. The digital instructor could even be slightly older than the actual student—perhaps six months older—and shown to have mastered the subject, demonstrating that it is possible and serving as inspiration.

教育中也存在类似机会。儿童在注视其他儿童时会更加投入。因此，有时候，儿童年龄的数字教员可能是比成人教师效果更好的指导老师。数字教员的年龄甚至可以比实际学生略大一点——也许大六个月——并表现出已经掌握了这门学科，从而证明这事可以办到，并且发挥激励作用。

Designing Digital Humans

设计虚拟人物

In creating a digital human, firms must address two questions: Does it look right? and Can it communicate appropriately with users in the given context?

创造虚拟人物时，企业必须解决两个问题：它看起来是否违和？以及它能否在特定环境中与用户恰当交流？

Appearance and sound. Appearance includes human features (such as nose shape and eye color), demographic characteristics (such as gender, age, and ethnicity), and taste (such as tattoos, makeup, accessories, and clothes). How the digital human sounds depends on its accent or dialect, vocabulary, tone of voice, and other factors. A great deal of design time is spent creating a “personality” for the digital human through appearance and sound.

外形与声音。外形包括人类特征（比如鼻子形状和眼睛颜色）、人口特征（比如性别、年龄和种族），以及品味（比如文身、妆容、饰品和服装）。虚拟人物的声音取决于其口音或方言、词汇、语气及其他因素。大量的设计时间都会花在通过外表和声音为虚拟人物创造一种“个性”。

The personality should fit the context. A user may feel more comfortable accepting medical advice from an older and wiser-looking digital human wearing a lab coat. However, that digital human would be ill-suited for a sales assistant role in the fashion industry. A smiling, perky digital human in customer service might annoy complainers. Conversely, a serious, mature digital human would hardly be a convincing virtual influencer for a hip lifestyle brand.

个性应该符合环境。用户可能更乐意接受一名更加年长，穿着实验室大褂、看起来更睿智的数字人物提供的医疗建议。然而，这样的虚拟人物不适合在时装行业担任销售助理。在客服部门，一名面带微笑、神气活泼的虚拟人物可能会惹恼投诉者。相反，一位严肃成熟的虚拟人物很难为一个时尚生活方式品牌充当有说服力的带货网红。

Brand image must be kept top of mind in designing digital humans, which serve as company ambassadors. Appearance and personality should reflect core company values and reinforce the brand image; mismatches may confuse customers or even damage the brand.

设计虚拟人物时，品牌形象必须被放在首位考虑。虚拟人物是公司的形象大使。外表和个性应该反映公司的核心价值，并且提升品牌形象；错配可能会令客户困惑，甚至损害品牌。

Digital humans must have a minimum level of human realism in the way they look and sound, otherwise they will be off-putting. But this is far less of a problem than it used to be. Rapid advancement in graphics technology and AI have dramatically improved standards. Tech that was once deployed only in Hollywood blockbusters is now available to most companies. Recent studies show that today’s realistic digital humans are considered by customers to be more trustworthy and are more likely to instill a sense of affinity or trust than other visual forms such as visual chatbots and animated characters. While people don’t require visual perfection, they want their virtual counterparts to be expressive and appealing, because what they’re seeking is an authentic interaction—which brings us to the second design challenge.

虚拟人物在外表和声音方面的逼真程度必须处于最低水平，否则就会使人反感。不过这个问题现在没有那么严重了。图形技术和人工智能的快速进步显著提高了标准。曾经只在好莱坞大片中使用的技术，现在可以为大多数企业所用。最近的研究表明，相比视觉聊天机器人和动画人物等其他视觉形式，如今逼真的虚拟人物会被客户认为更值得信赖，更有可能传递亲切感或信任感。虽然人们不要求视觉上的完美，但他们希望虚拟的人类具有表现力和吸引力，因为他们寻求的是一种真实互动——这就把我们引到了第二个设计挑战。

Communication. Soul Machines’ Mark Sagar argues that for face-to-face interaction, the challenge is enabling digital humans to process multiple signals of intent and information. He has spent years working on how digital humans respond to and give verbal and nonverbal signals. “You’ve got to combine everything,” he told us. “Speech-related gesturing, iconic gesturing, semantic gesturing, and all kinds of body language.” Designers can’t rely on scripted or branched prerecorded dialogues, because a conversation can head in any direction at any time. “Every time you add new dimensions that adds to the number of conversational combinations the digital human has to address.”

沟通。Soul Machines的马克·萨加尔认为，对于面对面的互动，挑战在于让数字虚拟人能够处理多种意图和信息信号。他花了多年时间研究虚拟人物如何回应和发出语言及非语言信号。“必须综合考虑，”他告诉我们，“考虑与语言有关的手势、标志性的手势、语义手势，以及各种身体语言。”设计师不能依赖脚本化的或枝型拓展的预录对话，因为对话会随时走向任何方向。“每次增加新范围，都会增加虚拟人物必须应对的对话组合的数量。”

Soul Machines uses advanced AI to circumvent this problem. The digital humans work from text and sentiment analysis and from camera input containing the human counterpart’s emotional feedback, such as body language and facial expressions. Sagar is the first to admit that digital humans can never know a user’s emotional state of mind; however, the more accurately they are able to analyze users, reflect their concerns, and apply machine-learning programs, the more meaningful they become to the customer.

Soul Machines使用了先进的AI来规避这个问题。虚拟人物的工作依据是文本和情感分析，以及包含身体语言和面部表情等人类情感反馈的影像信息。萨加尔是第一个承认虚拟人物永远不可能懂得用户情绪状态的人；然而，越是能够准确地分析用户，反映自己关注的问题，并应用机器学习程序，虚拟人物对客户就越有意义。

Understanding nuances in human conversation can be challenging. Researchers at Digital Domain have made great advances in natural language understanding with their digital humans, but some things such as irony are still very hard to navigate. The problem is not just understanding and emotionally interpreting a person’s comments; the AI engine also has to take into account previous interactions and the broader context of the situation. As impressive as the advances of the past few years have been in AI, companies must have a realistic understanding of the uses and limits of digital humans.

理解人类对话中的细微差别非常有挑战性。Digital Domain的研究人员已经让其虚拟人物在理解自然语言方面取得了巨大进步，但讽刺等语气仍然非常难以驾驭。问题不仅在于理解和感性地解读一个人的言论；人工智能引擎还必须考虑到之前的互动和更广泛的情境。尽管人工智能在过去几年取得的进步令人印象深刻，但企业必须对虚拟人物的用途和局限性有现实的了解。

Digital humans are disrupting how firms engage with customers, suppliers, employees, and external stakeholders by offering personalized attention at scale. They are also being applied to internal corporate processes by transforming video production, training programs, and administrative support. And an emerging set of providers are creating, training, and supporting the deployment of many new types of digital humans. Firms that embrace this new technology will lower costs, increase revenues, and gain a sustainable first-mover advantage that slower adopters may find hard to overcome as customers become attached to their digital counterparts.

虚拟人物提供了大规模的个性化关注，正在颠覆企业与客户、供应商、员工和外部利益相关者的相处方式。通过改变视频制作、培训项目和行政支持，他们也开始被应用于企业内部流程。一批新兴的供应商正在创建、培训和支持许多新型虚拟人物的部署。欣然采用这种新技术的企业可以实现降本增效，并获得可持续的先发优势，而随着客户对数字虚拟人物产生依赖，迟缓采用这一技术的企业，可能会难以战胜这种优势。

迈克·西摩（Mike Seymour）丹·洛瓦洛（Dan Lovallo）、卡伊·里默尔（Kai Riemer）艾伦·丹尼斯（Alan R. Dennis）、袁玲瑶（Ling Yao Ivy Yuan，音译）| 文  

迈克·西摩是悉尼大学的高级讲师，莫图斯实验室（Motus Lab）主任。

丹·洛瓦洛是悉尼大学战略、创新和决策科学教授。

卡伊·里默尔是悉尼大学信息技术与组织学教授。

艾伦·丹尼斯是印第安纳大学凯莱商学院（Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business）教授，互联网系统学约翰·钱伯斯讲席教授（John T. Chambers Chair）。

袁玲瑶是爱荷华州立大学常春藤商学院（Ivy College of Business at Iowa State University）助理教授。

永年 | 译   蒋荟蓉 | 校   孙燕 | 编辑