What’s Real?
I’m convinced the cell phone service in my house is the worst in the world.
It’s been this way for the last 25 years. Maybe I live in a dead zone.
I finally got fed up and tried to get a signal booster from our provider.
I fired up the chat function on their website and once I got past the initial chatbot, I was transferred to a real customer service rep – or so I thought. This chat sounded suspiciously like the first one. Then when this rep(?) couldn’t help me, I was again transferred, this time to a Level 2 (their description) support person. I was again subjected to the same questions. When the answer to my problem was “There is a minor service interruption in your area. Please wait two hours.” I knew something was fishy.
And then they were gone. I asked a follow-up question and received “Message Could Not be Sent.”
Thanks chatbot for your excellent service!
While chatbot technology has come a long way to make it seem like you are talking to a real person, another technology - Metaphysic for Video is set to take this to a whole new level.
Basically, what this technology can do is seamlessly superimpose anyone’s face on someone else’s face and make it look like they are actually that person.
This was shown to great effect on a recent episode of America’s Got Talent, when Simon Cowell’s face was superimposed on a singer’s face and it looked like Cowell was singing. It was that convincing.
Pharmaceutical Outsourcing has been covering the move to decentralized clinical trials (DCTs) for a while now. DCTs have many advantages including lower costs for the sponsor, easier patient retention, and a generally more streamlined and efficient trial program.
Whether DCTs will be done through mobile devices or computers, I think it is safe to say we will probably be seeing more artificial intelligence (AI) technology like chatbots and Metaphysic as remote monitoring becomes more commonplace.
Of course, this opens up a whole can of worms – if you can put Simon Cowell’s face on a random singer and make it look real – can you put a real doctor’s face on anyone? Who would know the difference? Is it even ethical to do that? My guess is no.
I’ve never participated in a clinical trial – either a traditional one or a decentralized trial. But I think it would be interesting to do so.
But first I need to get that signal booster – I think I would miss most of my check-in calls with my current service.
Mike Auerbach
Editor In Chief
[email protected]
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