Beyond Avatars: How AI is Reshaping Online Identity (Danny Postma and Sinead Bovell)

1. 0:00 – 3:08

   Introduction

   1. DPDanny Postma0:00

      I barely sleep at night because every time I wake up the next morning, there's something new that's launched

   2. SSSteph Smith0:04

      In the arc of innovation, a few years can feel like a long time or no time at all. Because early on, things move slow. People ask, "Are we there yet?" And also jump to point out that we're not exactly where people thought we would be. But when technologies hit that exponential phase, things move really quickly, sometimes so quickly that we forget that tools like Midjourney or Stable Diffusion literally did not exist one year ago. Now, in a recent episode, we discussed the first wave of technology used to build digital influencers, and we did that with the creators of Lil Miquela. Miquela was a first mover, and she was built in 2016. But at the same time, she was built with CGI. But today, we're actually presented with an entirely new set of tools, these AI tools that give almost anyone the opportunity to build a digital influencer of their own. So in today's follow-up episode, I thought it'd be interesting to bring in two new voices, seemingly from different worlds, but also converging on one topic. That topic being: how does artificial intelligence fundamentally change the way that we all represent ourselves online? The first voice is Sinead Bovell. Sinead describes herself as a futurist, but she also wrote an article titled I Am a Model and I Know That Artificial Intelligence Will Eventually Take My Job. But here's the thing, she wrote this three years ago, which again, depending on the prism that you have on the world, can both feel like yesterday and forever ago. Our second voice is Danny Postma. Danny has explored the many ways that AI can reshape how we express ourselves online by building the tools to actually enable that. So that ranges from the memes that we post, to the tattoos that we put on our body, to the headshots that we all post on LinkedIn. And over the last few months, yes, months, not years, he's created seven different projects, and that ranges from the things I just mentioned, tattoos, memes, headshots, but also a virtual modeling agency. And honestly, if you've been on AI Twitter recently, I can almost guarantee you've seen at least one of his projects. So we brought in Sinead, and we brought in Danny, and together we explore how these tools may impact the world of modeling, but also creators in just about any forum that we as humans show up online. We'll discuss the deflationary nature of these tools, what they unlock, how to build a moat, and so much more. And I'll also say that Sinead unfortunately had to drop a little bit early, but Danny stuck around with us till the very end. All right, let's get started. As a reminder, the content here is for informational purposes only. None of the following is investment, business, legal, or tax advice. And please note that a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed in this podcast. Please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments. [upbeat music]

2. 3:08 – 8:00

   The key insights

   1. SSSteph Smith3:08

      I am so excited to have you two on the line today. Um, as you both know, we did an interview with the creators of Lil Miquela just before this. And Lil Miquela is created with CGI, and it was started in 2016. I should say she was started in 2016. And now it feels like we're going through a second wave of sorts. It feels like maybe anyone can create these characters online, and that could be characters that are net new, that are not necessarily representative of them, or it could be representing their own personality, their own likeness in a new way using, you know, I feel like the technology of the year, AI. So before we get into that technology and what people are building there, Sinead, you wrote an article in 2020 with Vogue that I feel like was really prescient. Um, it was called I Am a Model and I Know That Artificial Intelligence Will Eventually Take My Job. And here we are in 2023. Maybe this does not sound surprising three years later, but back then, that was a statement. And so tell me a little bit more about that article and what inspired you three years ago to write it.

   2. SBSinéad Bovell4:17

      Yes. So, um, you know, I, I also work as, as a futurist, so a lot of my, my time is spent buried in data, tracking trends. And I had come across, uh, a company called Datagrid using a form of generative AI called adversarial networks. We would know more formally or informally as deep fakes. If this technology can so accurately create artificial identities, artificial beings, uh, what industry could that have a lot of ramifications for? And the clear cut for me was, was fashion, uh, especially when it comes to e-commerce, uh, a line or a segment of, of fashion where it's not necessarily about these creative big movements for a fashion model, but instead just small variations in the posing, uh, and that in some ways is somewhat robotic already. We don't have a lot of variability into the types of poses we can do or, or the things that we can try when it comes to e-commerce. It has to look good on a website. And so that to me was a very clear trend line that I was able to, to draw. And I, I did also see, as I was researching more and more, fashion companies like Zalando, a big e-commerce giant in, in Germany, also researching the technology. And then when you combine it with, uh, Lil Miquela was also a big influencer back then. This was like n- 2019 when I started to research. All signs pointed to a future where society might be okay with, with artificial beings representing clothing and where it could be a much more cost-effective future for, for fashion companies.

   3. SSSteph Smith5:46

      Totally. And we're seeing this be extrapolated not just to fashion, and we'll get to that, but I wanna hear, when you wrote this article, what was the response? And maybe break that down both by the people in the modeling industry and then also outside.

   4. SBSinéad Bovell6:01

      Yeah. So I-- It was definitely a shock to a lot of people. Um, and I think- For a long time, even though technology has always disrupted fashion, whether that's e-commerce or, or whatever it may be, th- nobody was really talking about the impact of automation on creative jobs at that time, um, and especially not fashion modeling. So the fashion world, a little bit of fear, I would say, in, in the modeling world. But I also try to... I don't like to just drop kind of fear-mongering things and leave everybody to fend for themselves. Saying things like, "It isn't just models, right? Everybody's gonna have to, uh, prepare for the future of work." So providing that perspective, um, I think was a little bit reassuring for people. But the amount of responses I received, and not even just in the modeling world, people in advertising, photography, all sorts of surrounding ecosystem players in the world of fashion that will inevitably be impacted by a world where we can digitally generate photo shoots. The article was received as something highly likely, but I think people couldn't conceptualize how this transformation would actually come about. So it became suddenly true for people that, okay, in some way, modeling might be impacted by AI, like other industries would be. But they couldn't actually understand what that could actually look like. It became hard to see how that would materialize. And then now in this kind of explosion of generative, uh, AI, it's like all of the light bulbs are going off, uh, connecting all of the pieces.

   5. SSSteph Smith7:32

      Yeah. And as I said, it's not just models. I think a lot of people, as you said, it's materializing where they're seeing how these tools today are already maybe not replacing them, but are able to do things that they previously thought they were safe from the advancements of these technologies. In fact, that was really how people viewed it. They were like, "If you're creative, you know, that's where the robots are unable to match you." And we're now seeing that maybe that's not the case. And so, you know, talking about some of these tools,

3. 8:00 – 9:44

   The photo studio of the future

   1. SSSteph Smith8:00

      Danny, let's move on to you created many different projects, and we'll get into more of them. But one of them was really, you know, this, like, photo studio of the future, this modeling agency where you really could spin up a model, put them in these different backdrops, drop in your product, things like that. And so you posted this a couple weeks ago, and it went really viral. I think one tweet in particular reached, like, two million people. But you also, I think, saw, maybe similar to Sinead's article, a range of responses. And so tell us a little bit about what that product was, but also how people responded to it.

   2. DPDanny Postma8:35

      I've been dabbling with different kind of projects, and it all came together. And I made this tweet. My product wasn't ready yet, uh, Deep Agency. The tweet went absolutely viral, so within 24 hours, I had to come up with something to put live, because otherwise there, there wasn't a website online. I think it went viral, it got 30 million views as a modeling agency, and it's nowhere close to that. I think there's a lot of other tools that are way better doing those kind of things. But yeah, as you said, like, all the technology's coming together right now, all these different kind of models, the ability to generate deep fakes, deep, like, non-existing people, but also the ability to put the clothing on those kind of models. It's like all these separated tracks of development by researchers over the last past years that are all coming together in 2023, turning into tools like this.

   3. SSSteph Smith9:21

      Since you've been kind of, like, in the bowels of these tools, Danny, do you think, you know, let's say, like, a year from now or maybe even five years from now, is it realistic that basically you can represent what the modeling industry does today or what influencers do today with these technologies and have it be pretty much like a one-for-one or a match in terms of it being as good?

4. 9:44 – 10:58

   Programs and models behind deep fakes

   1. DPDanny Postma9:44

      So what is able, what I'm able to do right now, what others are able to do right now, is the ability to use DreamBooth, which is technology to train an AI on top of someone's face, and you can basically make a clone, a digital twin or whatever, of someone. There are other models called StyleGAN, which basically are trained on millions and millions of fa- pho- photos, and they can generate faces and heads that do not exist at the moment. They, they are non-traceable. It's, they don't exist. Combine those two, and you can train a DreamBooth model on a non-existent person and create a model, for example. And then there are other deep learning models that are able to make a, and I believe the name is, like, a top-down photograph of a clothing that's not being worn by someone.

   2. SSSteph Smith10:27

      Mm-hmm.

   3. DPDanny Postma10:27

      And the AI knows how to put that clothing in kind of the folding ways to put it on top of someone's body, being able to, like, dress the model in that kind of way. So the technology is there at the moment, I believe. It's up to a company that understands the fashion industry to take it to the other level.

   4. SSSteph Smith10:44

      Oh, I love that point, because there is, you know, this sense of taste of the people in the modeling industry are not just the folks who look a certain way or are able to hold a camera a certain way, but they do have this background, this understanding of aesthetic.

5. 10:58 – 12:36

   How the technology is used today

   1. SSSteph Smith10:58

      And so Sinead, tell me a little bit more about how maybe some of these companies are using this technology today. Are they leaning in and saying, "Oh, actually, this is really valuable. We're going to utilize these new tools because we are in this new era," or are they kind of resistant to this new wave?

   2. SBSinéad Bovell11:16

      Yeah. I think it kind of depends on the type of fashion company. So if you look at e-commerce and a company, uh, although we might not be as familiar with Zalando in America, they're quite a big fashion giant in Europe. For them to be researching this technology and showing very viable proof of concept as early as 2019, we know that fashion companies are exploring this. And we can also say a company like H&M, they have thousands of data scientists that use AI to do things like forecast trends and, and, and understand and analyze supply chain. So they already have the, the somewhat of the infrastructure to deploy the next advancements in, in what the industry will be adopting. I would say where we might see a little bit more resistance is, like, potentially in, in high fashion, uh, when it comes to using AI for things like design. Although I do expect, uh, as any tool, it will eventually be adopted. But I would argue that there's probably been cer- instances where any of us on this, on this podcast right now have come across an AI model and just not realized it-

   3. SSSteph Smith12:21

      Mm-hmm

   4. SBSinéad Bovell12:22

      ... uh, shopping online. So I think the technology has been here for, for years. It's 2023. Companies were investing in it in 2018. It's, it's largely here. It just hasn't materialized as broadly at scale yet. But that's coming.

6. 12:36 – 15:29

   How real is today’s content?

   1. SSSteph Smith12:36

      I think maybe one pushback people might have is like, okay, if this thing is AI generated, it's not, quote unquote, "real." But, like, how real are the photos that we're seeing today anyway? Like, ignore the digital virtual influencer concept. The photos that we're seeing on a billboard, like how Photoshopped are those? How real is the end image that we're seeing today? I feel like there's a degree of fabrication already, and so maybe you could just kind of speak to that concept, and maybe, again, just like the natural pushback for us to say, "Well, this is not human anymore," but how far past the original photograph were we already?

   2. SBSinéad Bovell13:12

      Yeah. I mean, that-- it also depends on how representative the models are of, of society. So it could be argued that it, it is hard to find examples of, of diverse representation in the fashion industry as it stands today, and so therefore seeing a, a piece of clothing on somebody else, how helpful is that if it's, if you can't necessarily... or your body is a, is a different shape, or you couldn't conform to the clothes in the same way? And in terms of the actual shoots themselves, of course, there is a lot of pinning and l- last-minute stitching and things to make things appear to fit a certain way. Uh, and then of course the, the Photoshop part towards the end. I am not the p- the person on the computer doing the Photoshop, so I couldn't tell you exactly how much Photoshop there is. At the end of the day, yeah, an image definitely does get altered, so it isn't entirely like this documentary style, uh, photography where it just goes specifically from shoot straight to market. But at the same time, there are interesting social and cultural tre- trends that are converging. The idea of, of Photoshopping images is becoming a little bit more taboo. People are speaking up against it, uh, that they wanna see maybe some of the stretch marks or, or the cellulite or the, or the acne, the things that make people human. Uh, and so it's interesting that that's also-- those types of social and cultural trends are appearing at a time when we're arguably becoming less human in some ways, or how fashion and culture is represented is becoming a little less human.

   3. SSSteph Smith14:36

      Yeah. I mean, I think maybe one of the most interesting aspects of AI is that you can really prompt it to give you whatever you want, and so you can prompt it literally to say, "Hey, I want this person to have acne. I want this person to be of my race or culture or gender." You can really prompt it to give you whatever you want. But at the same time, I think there is this yearning for what people again call real. A- and I think that term is, is going to take on a whole new dimension as we look forward. But the last thing I wanna ask just on as we talk about, like, fashion and modeling is maybe a sense of the cost. The cost differential is something that ultimately plays a role in adoption. And so Danny, let's just use an example, right? So you have this AI model. This person doesn't exist. In fact, you did create one of these. Uh, her name is Alice, and people can find this model, um, at thismodeldoesnotexist.co, I believe, and we'll link that in the show notes. Let's just use that as an example.

7. 15:29 – 17:13

   The cost of a virtual model

   1. SSSteph Smith15:29

      If you wanted to do a photo shoot with Alice, like how much would that cost? And, and let's break that down between like actually training the initial data set or the i- initial face and then actually generating a bunch of images. Let's just give the audience a sense of what that takes.

   2. DPDanny Postma15:46

      So currently, to deep train a model on someone's face to be able to generate photos after that, it costs 60 cents to generate this.

   3. SSSteph Smith15:56

      Okay.

   4. DPDanny Postma15:57

      Yeah. So not even a dollar. And then I think per photo, you're at a fraction of a cent right now. So you could generate hundreds of thousands of photos for less than 100 bucks. Um, so technology's pretty cheap already in that sense. So I believe this is, this is from what I've seen talking to customers, people, the number one, uh, question in my live chat is from mom-and-pop shops with clothes, clothing brands who do not have the funds to hire models to put on clothing for the web shops, who I think probably wouldn't even ever be able to hire a model to do the photo shoots for them. So I see this as a-- it's like democratizing for the lower spectrum of the small business, enabling them to do the fashion shoots. And yeah, I think it's mostly for those kind of, uh, consumers that this is interesting to do.

   5. SSSteph Smith16:49

      Yeah. And there's other applications of that. Like I, I did a presentation recently, and I used Midjourney for all of my images within that presentation, and I probably would not have had those images. I, I wouldn't have hired someone at the very least to go create them. And so there is, as you said, this democratizing force, this ability for folks that didn't have access to a specific technology to use it in these new ways.

8. 17:13 – 19:28

   Industry benefits

   1. SSSteph Smith17:13

      Um, Sinead, let's hear the other side of that. Like maybe perhaps some of these folks who are models may not be hired for the same roles or maybe they will still be, and in the case where they are, what are the benefits of all this? Like, can you do, uh, a bunch of shoots where, you know, your avatar is, quote unquote, "attending" those shoots without you actually physically being there? Um, can you save a bunch of money, fuel, and not traveling? Can you actually like upgrade yourself in some way? I'm just kind of throwing ideas out there, but how might this actually change the industry for the better?

   2. SBSinéad Bovell17:49

      Is there a world in which a model can be in multiple places at one time, uh, and therefore increase their, their income stream and have more assets of themself to be out in the market? Absolutely. That could be quite profitable, quite lucrative if- The industry does evolve that way in a world where we want to see the, the same influencers and people we look to, uh, in fashion to continue to be the face of brands and, and the clothing. But if you look at the history of technology, technology is often quite deflationary over time, especially when it comes to wages. Uh, so in a world where, uh, a model can be in multiple places at one time, yes, they may be able to have more revenue streams coming in, but do we see downward pressure on prices? Uh, because a lot of it's created digitally, uh, and there's an increase in, in supply of identities that could pass for being human. And so that's where things get a little bit gray and a little bit ethically red flags and, and kind of caution tape. And I will say, again, it's not that this is unique to modeling. We're gonna see this across the board with AI. It's gonna put downward pressure on a lot of different wages from modeling to programming, but that's where it becomes a little bit challenging. Uh, and then what is uniquely applicable to, to modeling and maybe acting is that not only are people getting automated, but their likeness and the communities they represent are also getting automated, but someone is still benefiting off of that very specific identity. Uh, so that's where it starts to become a little bit gray.

   3. SSSteph Smith19:26

      Yeah. I mean, it's g-

   4. SBSinéad Bovell19:27

      Or a lot gray.

9. 19:28 – 23:25

   Market appetite

   1. SSSteph Smith19:28

      [laughs] I mean, it's going to be interesting to see how that all evolves if you, you know, like what regulation gets put in place, what IP people own or do not own that goes into these models. On the topic that this really does expand past modeling, I think what's fascinating, Danny, is you've really went on this sprint over the last few months. You've created... I mean, I'm just gonna name some of the, the projects. You did Tattoos AI, which is, you know, an AI-powered tattoo artist. We mentioned Alice, this model that does not exist that you created. You started, I think, or one of your early projects was Profile Picture AI, which is similar to Lensa, which most people would recognize. We talked about Deep Agency, MemeMorph, people can morph themselves into their favorite meme. And then most recently you're working on Headshot Pro, which is basically people can create their next corporate headshot, or a company can create a kind of wave of headshots for their entire staff. And so among those projects, first just kind of tell me what you're seeing as you've launched these projects, what people are getting excited about, what you're getting a lot of traction with right away without maybe perhaps even trying, and where actually, you know, this technology may be interesting, but it feels more like, you know, a trek uphill, if that makes sense.

   2. DPDanny Postma20:44

      Yeah. So first of all, like, the, the whole reason this scales really fast for me and this gets a lot of attention because it's indistinguishable from magic at the moment. You upload a few photos, and suddenly you get hundreds and hundreds of profile pictures out for it. So this is why people keep sharing it on Instagram, uh, on TikTok. It goes viral really fast. The second, like, I think what mostly gets solved at the moment is I get a lot of messages from folks who say, "I don't have any profile pictures, I don't have any photos, and suddenly I can look really well online." And this is one of the major selling points for Headshot, for example. Well, like me, for example, I hate going to photo shoots 'cause I always look super awkward. I don't smile. Like, so for them, this, like, solves an actual issue that they can look good on their, uh, LinkedIn. Same with Profile Picture, you can turn yourself into whatever you want. Uh, Lensa showed how popular that could be. I believe Lensa did $40 million with that. I like this as an art. I like to dabble with it. I like to try things out. I get an idea, I have to work it out. Gets easier and easier because it uses the same technology. And Headshot has been the biggest success traffic-wise, financial-wise at the moment. For remote teams, which it branded at, at the moment, like, good luck trying to get a photographer. If your team is remotely and you have people in Asia, America, Europe, and you want to get the same photo style, like, you cannot send a photographer all around the world to get the same style, but everyone can upload a photo, train an AI model on them, use the same style to generate it, and basically everyone gets the same headshot for that team. If you're creative enough in it and you try enough, there are use cases that people think it's gonna take away the photographer, but I think it's gonna enable different kind of things that weren't possible before with this technology, like having a photographer everywhere in the world, trying out different hairstyles, for example, uh, things that weren't enabled before that are enabled now by this technology.

   3. SSSteph Smith22:34

      Yeah, it's kind of crazy. If you go to Headshot Pro, I think you have this live counter. Um, and last time I checked it said 450,000-plus headshots were created, and that's just-

   4. DPDanny Postma22:45

      I, I think it's a million now 'cause I have to manually update it-

   5. SSSteph Smith22:48

      [laughs]

   6. DPDanny Postma22:48

      ... and it's two weeks live now. Yeah, it's, it's-

   7. SSSteph Smith22:50

      Oh, I was gonna say

   8. DPDanny Postma22:51

      ... it's crazy.

   9. SSSteph Smith22:51

      I just checked it last night. You kind of alluded to this, but there's ways that people are using this product. Like, you're s- you're creating these projects, and you're releasing them into the world, and you're kind of tinkering and thinking, "Oh, maybe people will use it in this way." But I've seen you tweet about the fact that you've actually been surprised that as you release this tool, people are using the tool in ways that you didn't even expect as the creator.

   10. DPDanny Postma23:13

       Well, that's, that's like, uh, with Profile Picture, I learned from the Headshots and Team Headshots 'cause we used to do only these artsy styles, and people kept requesting, "Hey, can I get a LinkedIn photo for myself?" So we kept tinkering

10. 23:25 – 25:15

    Evolving tech

    1. DPDanny Postma23:25

       with that way.

    2. SSSteph Smith23:26

       Yeah. And just on the note of what people are being drawn to, I think maybe one way to have a pulse on that is what people are willing to pay for. And so among your projects, have you noticed any trends there in terms of things that people almost seem allergic to? Like, "Oh, this is cool, this is novel, but, like, I'm not gonna pay you $30 for that," versus maybe the Headshot example is something that people have ingrained in their mind, like, "Oh, a headshot is worth X dollars."

    3. DPDanny Postma23:54

       So with Profile Picture, we started pretty expensive at the time, and I've been lowering the price lower, lower, lower, and I think we're almost around cost price at the moment, $5 to generate them. So-

    4. SSSteph Smith24:03

       Mm-hmm

    5. DPDanny Postma24:03

       ... yeah, Lensa basically killed the whole market after they-

    6. SSSteph Smith24:06

       [laughs]

    7. DPDanny Postma24:06

       ... and after they went live. Um-

    8. SSSteph Smith24:08

       Right

    9. DPDanny Postma24:08

       ... so yeah, I think mostly now it's, um, it's the high-quality output, and I really wonder where we're gonna go in the next, next few months 'cause these models keep releasing, keep releasing. Like, I don't even- I barely sleep at night because every time I wake up the next morning, there's something new that's launched that already makes the whole technology obsolete. It's, it's going so fast, so I don't know where it's gonna end up.

    10. SSSteph Smith24:31

        Well, [laughs] I know. I feel, I feel like a lot of people would agree with that sentiment, that it's moving so quickly. It's so hard to keep up. On the note of it evolving, though, right, these new models are being released all the time. What ways does this, like, really change or shape the way that people can represent themselves online? I think, you know, if you use the Headshot example, that's kind of a one-to-one parallel to what we did before this technology existed. But maybe what are new, exciting ideas that people can look forward to? I mean, one example of, you know, this in fashion is, like, I can't remember how long ago this was, but, like, Bella Hadid's spray-on dress was, like, a new kind of concept within fashion where people are like, "Wow, we have this new technology that fundamentally changes, like, what we can create."

11. 25:15 – 28:38

    Unlocking a new wave of creativity

    1. SSSteph Smith25:15

       And so Sinead, maybe I'll start with you there, but any ideas on how this really, again, doesn't just replicate what we've done before, but maybe unlocks a whole new wave of creativity?

    2. SBSinéad Bovell25:25

       On the one hand, it puts design tools in the hands of people who wouldn't have been able to step into the market. And so what does it look like to have an AI system that's been kind of refined on a certain style that you like, that you're able to kind of tweak and then digitally apply those images to your body or your, your photograph? So, um, maybe you can't really afford the, the high-brand luxury fashion, uh, but you can generate, uh, your own version of luxury using these systems and digitally apply the clothes to you afterwards. And I know that the digital application of clothes has been something that's been seeming to be in the pipeline for the last few years. But now it, it really is possible, uh, to retrospectively ap- apply clothes to, to images. Uh, and if you look at what the internet and social media did to fashion, we saw the birth of all of these small brands that finally had a shot. Um, in some ways it actually became really cool to be the undiscovered brand that suddenly kind of, you know, was discovered and, and, and popped off by a certain celebrity figuring them out. Um, imagine what happens when more of us get access to, to these design tools. Fashion is really a, is really a communicator of, of culture, and now we can push the bounds on that almost infinitely. Where we conduct photoshoots, who gets to be in them. When we go digital, things change a lot. Of course, again, you know, there are, there are ethical challenges that come with that, in even things like copyright. Am I allowed to be inspired by Celine, for example, have an AI system look at the latest collection, and then say, "Put me in clothes that look like this, the latest Celine, you know, suit and shoes," but it's not Celine. Where does the IP go there? And, uh, you know, are there, there are real designers on the line who may see knock-offs at, at a whole other scale than we already do. So we do have to figure out what are the boundaries of this technology, uh, where does IP start and stop in a world where we're a lot more digitized. But I think the, the what could be possible and who gets to be a designer, I think could be really interesting.

    3. SSSteph Smith27:26

       Definitely. Danny, what about you? Anything come to mind in terms of how this technology maybe unlocks, again, like, a, a new wave of creativity or new opportunities?

    4. DPDanny Postma27:36

       Photoshop shaped up this whole industry, where suddenly you could make photos and you're adjusting it afterwards. So you would make a photo, and Photoshop was the, the post-production. I wonder how AI can do something, and I think it's gonna go there, how AI can be the pre-production. Whereas you generate the photos, you can do the real photoshoots to solve for missing, missing content that you cannot make with the AI, and then have Photoshop stitch those pre-generation and post-generation together. For example, what I would think for Headshot Pro is, like, the customers who get the best output from me did a photoshoot themself, very basic photoshoot on a white screen, trained the AI on the photos, and then I could generate hundreds and hundreds photo of them in a park, in a office, wherever they wanna be. So I wonder if headshot photographers are gonna transition towards generating really, really high-quality training images, for example, and then use AI tools like the next Photoshop to put their customers, without having them to go outside, having to go whatever, make the perfect photo

12. 28:38 – 30:23

    Future predictions

    1. DPDanny Postma28:38

       for themself.

    2. SBSinéad Bovell28:39

       No, I'll also add to that, I think where we each get to be the model in the shoots that we see. So instead of just looking at the campaign, you, there might be an interactive option where you could drop in your own virtual twin to see how you would personally look in that image. Uh, and I think that that could be really, really interesting, and maybe be even more accurate in terms of how things would likely fit, uh, on your body, if we could get the physics of clothes right, uh, online.

    3. DPDanny Postma29:05

       And I wouldn't be surprised if, if any social media is gonna do this soon, 'cause Instagram already has photos of your face, right? They could already train a model on your, on your face in that kind of sense, and you could put the clothing on it that they put in their shopping carousel, for example. So I think social media platforms are gonna integrate this in a few years or within a year, for example. And this is, this is gonna be reality.

    4. SSSteph Smith29:25

       Yeah, I mean, I think if anything, we'll at least learn a lot about our own preferences, because I don't know about you, I don't wanna see, [laughs] I don't wanna see my face online everywhere, but some people might. But also, you might learn about what you do wanna see. What kind of person do I wanna see modeling in front of me online? Right now, I don't have that option to decide. But as we do get more of these options, and, and I think what both of you are pointing towards is, like, we have, with these tools, eventually more say. And it'll be interesting to see how people utilize that say, right? How, how they wanna participate in that ecosystem, and I think we'll learn a lot, both individually, but also as a society, about what we want to see. Because previously, there weren't so many people involved in making that decision. One place that would be great to end off is, I mean, both of you have voiced how quickly this is moving, right, in your respective spaces. And by the way, respective spaces could mean, Sinead, you as a model, but also as a futurist. Danny, that could mean you as an indie hacker, it could mean a developer, as a nomad.

13. 30:23 – 32:02

    Keeping up with tech

    1. SSSteph Smith30:23

       As this evolves- In many dimensions. What are you doing to, quote unquote, keep up? And, you know, you can interpret that as you'd like.

    2. DPDanny Postma30:31

       Mm-hmm. I spend a significant portion of my day buried in academic white papers, uh, to see what is likely coming down the line, uh, in the next few years and, and kind of plotting out those, those trend graphs and those trend lines. But I also feel a little bit of a responsibility to bring other people along with me and to make sure that these conversations are accessible and digestible to everyone. I think we all have a right to, to learn about and try to shape our own futures. Uh, and it becomes really challenging if it's only the same few people invited to the conversations all of the time.

    3. SSSteph Smith31:03

       [laughs] Well, I think your Twitter following has grown because, like you said, there's just so much appetite for people to follow along and try to understand what is happening. And I'm also just curious because you were quite early to the stage here, especially with ProfilePicture.Ai.

14. 32:02 – 34:09

    Finding a moat

    1. SSSteph Smith32:03

       It's kinda crazy to think about. That was not that long ago, a few months ago, six months ago.

    2. DPDanny Postma32:07

       October, I think. It's not even s- it's not even been a half a year since all this tech is out. It's, it's mental.

    3. SSSteph Smith32:13

       Yeah. And it feels like forever ago. That seems like a perfect example of where you were early, but then to your point, it moved so quickly, this world moved so quickly, that ultimately Lensa came in. Lensa, I think, ended up, you know, if you were to declare a winner, not like it actually works that way, then Lensa, you know, took-

    4. DPDanny Postma32:31

       High winner

    5. SSSteph Smith32:31

       [laughs] took a majority of that market share. And I think a lot of people also have the question as they debate whether to build with these AI tools is, well, if it's all based on the same model, then, you know, ultimately do I have a moat? Do I have anything that actually will stand the test of time?

    6. DPDanny Postma32:48

       No, I got a, I got a really good wake-up call 'cause every indie hacker, like, we like to develop, right? We like to build things. We don't do marketing. And seeing Lensa swoop in one month after we actually launched this already and just did our revenue in one hour or something, like, it's a wake-up call for a developer. You gotta do ... Distribution is everything. Marketing is everything. It's really important. It's always been important with product launches, and now especially with AI where you have less of a moat. Hiring TikTok influencers, letting it post it, and it's going really fast due to it, but I think someone is gonna come out who has a way bigger budget for that. And that, in the sense, like, you shouldn't build on a hype. So what I'm focusing on mostly now is SEO, building tools, getting backlinks, um, trying to get it to stand the time longer than just a hype. Focus on, like, something small, some small problems to solve, and do your marketing. Do the distribution. Don't just build. You gotta sell it.

    7. SSSteph Smith33:43

       What might people not realize is surprisingly hard? And so maybe one simple example of that is as you're building these models, everyone jokes about the hands. I think that's being solved, but I think there's probably infinitely more things that you've encountered as you're building these projects that, like, again, people see the end result, and they're like, "Alice looks amazing," or like, "Deep Agency's working for me," or, "What a great headshot."

15. 34:09 – 35:25

    Stacked AI models

    1. SSSteph Smith34:09

       But what might people not realize if they haven't built these tools is actually, again, really, really hard.

    2. DPDanny Postma34:15

       So it might look easy on the inside, like on the outside. Okay, you upload some photos and 20 minutes later the photos are done. But actually... So Profile Picture was just DreamBooth. It was, there was no moat on it, and what I'm doing with Headshot is basically it's 15 different AI models stacked on top of each other in, like, a sequence of doing things together. Like, it's a moat th- like, they're custom models built right now.

    3. SSSteph Smith34:37

       Mm. Mm-hmm.

    4. DPDanny Postma34:37

       So-

    5. SSSteph Smith34:38

       And you said 15?

    6. DPDanny Postma34:38

       If you wanna stand out. Yeah, I think it's, at the moment it's 15 different AI models-

    7. SSSteph Smith34:44

       Wow

    8. DPDanny Postma34:44

       ... doing things on top of each other to optimize the photo quality, to optimize the training, upscaling, generating, yeah. If you wanna go more unique, yeah. I didn't know Python, I didn't know machine learning, and I had to learn all those kind of things so I could build my own models in that sense. Um, what's surprisingly easy these days is, and what used to be hard, is deploying those, uh, models. Running your GPUs is, used to be really hard, but there's all these startups springing up since, I think, October also since the hype. They wanted to capitalize on, okay, AI's hot. What is hard is hosting the models, so that part got really easy these times. So it's easier than ever to start at the moment.

16. 35:25 – 37:33

    Running your own GPUs and models

    1. SSSteph Smith35:25

       And just for those who maybe are at the very earliest stages where they're like, "Okay, I wanna do this. I wanna play around," where would you start? Like, how do you learn how to train your own models? How do you learn to deploy them? How do you learn to interface with something like Stable Diffusion?

    2. DPDanny Postma35:41

       So the easiest way would be to go to replicate.com. They host all the models. You can just select what you want. You could select, uh, Stable Diffusion, for example, and they have a few simple input files, fields where you can just type in what you want and it outputs the photo. They make it super easy. They have an API that you could hook up to a no-code tool, for example, if, if you'd want to build it in no code. I believe Zapier launched their, uh, Stable Diffusion integration. Um, so you could just plug that into an email or Discord or whatever. Um, so those two are really easy to get started with by making some simple, simple AI tools. Yeah, and if you wanna go deeper, you probably need some coding knowledge. But I think 99% of the apps you can build right now with API wrappers with no-code tools.

    3. SSSteph Smith36:26

       That's super cool because I think a lot of people who don't know how to code can actually participate in that ecosystem. We kind of veered from the original conversation, but I guess just closing off, because you have built All of these projects, how do you think about what to focus on now moving forward? I mean, this ties into our conversation around, like, what really has a moat, what people are really willing to pay for, especially because you are an indie hacker and you do need sleep eventually.

    4. DPDanny Postma36:53

       [laughs] I wouldn't dabble in any image generation in that sense, because Adobe already does it, Canva does it already. I wouldn't build any chatbots, because ChatGPT, they are shipping, I don't even know how they're doing it, but they're launching something new every, every week.

    5. SSSteph Smith37:09

       Well, hint, Danny, they have more than one person like you.

    6. DPDanny Postma37:12

       Fair enough. But they ship like a startup, which is exciting to see, because they're competing with Google and all the likes, right? No, but I would just pick, pick something, an idea, something that issues you, that annoys you, where you think, "Hey, maybe if I put some AI on top of this, it could speed it up." We're going into a recession, which means people wanna save money. So can you save money by removing

17. 37:33 – 40:37

    Product ideas

    1. DPDanny Postma37:33

       some kind of step?

    2. SSSteph Smith37:34

       Totally, and if anyone wants an idea, Danny, would love if you wanna jump on this, but a very simple thing that I still have not seen is the ability to use these text-to-image tools, but in a way where you can basically train it on your own brand, right? So you upload your brand colors. If you have, you know, let's say a blog with a bunch of sharing images from the past, you train it on that. And I know people can set up their own models to do this, but if there was a self-serve version where any brand today can, again, upload the constraints and then spit out new images, that, let me know if it exists, that you've seen it. That, to my knowledge, does not exist in that exact form.

    3. DPDanny Postma38:11

       I'm gonna 100% bet you that Canva does this in the next three months-

    4. SSSteph Smith38:14

       Okay [laughs]

    5. DPDanny Postma38:14

       ... easily.

    6. SSSteph Smith38:15

       You've been following.

    7. DPDanny Postma38:16

       [laughs]

    8. SSSteph Smith38:16

       Yeah, okay. Well, maybe, yeah, we'll see if Canva does that. But, um, yeah.

    9. DPDanny Postma38:20

       For me, if I, if I, if, if I can tune in an idea, I would love to see, I don't know if we have time for this.

    10. SSSteph Smith38:24

        Yes, please.

    11. DPDanny Postma38:25

        I would love to have, so OpenAI launched a, a model called Whisper-

    12. SSSteph Smith38:30

        Mm-hmm

    13. DPDanny Postma38:30

        ... which basically lets you transcribe audio. And all these voice, text-to-voice models are getting really, really creepily real. I would love to have someone build a tool where I say, "Hey, I want the top five posts of Hacker News while I was sleeping, the latest news, and my favorite people on Twitter, and generate me a 100% customized podcast I can listen five minutes while I walk with my dog in the morning. Customize it for me." I think that will be really awesome, and not even that hard to build, I guess.

    14. SSSteph Smith39:00

        No, I agree, and actually I've been seeing some folks, like there's this guy who's been creating the AI version of the All-In podcast. Um, and he's, he just released the fifth one. But you can actually see how with every subsequent one that he releases, it becomes less popular, because at the end of the day, that novelty factor is wearing off. However, to your idea, you're actually integrating that with, as we've discussed, like, a problem that you have, which is trying to digest a specific set of information, which is the stuff ranking on Hacker News, and actually digesting that. So that's, like, a very clear job to be done, versus a novelty of just, like, let's listen to these fake people talk about fake topics.

    15. DPDanny Postma39:41

        Yeah, don't, don't, don't build on the hype, 'cause you, you will get some attention on social media, and then it fades away, for example, yeah.

    16. SSSteph Smith39:47

        For some reason, this reminded me of back in the day, um, I knew this guy who used to listen to Spanish as he slept.

    17. DPDanny Postma39:54

        Mm-hmm.

    18. SSSteph Smith39:54

        And he was convinced that-

    19. DPDanny Postma39:56

        [laughs]

    20. SSSteph Smith39:56

        ... when he woke up, he was better at speaking Spanish. He was [laughs] trying to learn the language.

    21. DPDanny Postma40:00

        Did it work?

    22. SSSteph Smith40:02

        He thought so. I don't know if it did. But anyway, on that note, it's super cool to be watching all the things that you've built. Um, I think many people would agree with that, just, like, the, the rate of shipping is insane. I'm sure a lot of people are inspired to go create similar things, and, um, yeah, it's exciting to see what's being built.

    23. DPDanny Postma40:22

        100% agree. Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I'm really an honored.

    24. SSSteph Smith40:25

        Of course. Well, thanks for joining us. [upbeat music] Thanks for listening to the a16z podcast. If you like this episode, don't forget to subscribe here on YouTube to get our exclusive video content. We'll see you next time.

Episode duration: 40:47