Narayanan on voice AI: still uncanny valley, video avatars need big cost drops to go mainstream
random_walker · x · 2026-11-11
Arvind Narayanan and safety researcher Joshua Saxe debate AI companionship and voice interaction:
- Saxe argues progress since ChatGPT Voice is significant, but Narayanan — who spends hours weekly chatting with ChatGPT Voice while marathon training — says its grasp of his mental and emotional state is still in the uncanny valley, though that may not bother everyone
- Narayanan concedes he may be underestimating how hard crossing the uncanny valley is, but insists it will eventually be crossed: "now is the time to prepare"
- On consumer adoption, he agrees it's mostly an ad-revenue-scale problem: video avatar costs must drop a lot before they become widespread on the consumer side
A substantive exchange on the limits of AI companionship and the economics of video avatars.
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