4.3 Accurate Perception of AI Avatar
The Synthesia avatar program produced highly effective simulacra of
human presenters. Half of respondents (50%) incorrectly identified
their synthetic avatar as being an organic human spokesperson, with yet
another 11 percent unsure. Only 38 percent of respondents correctly
identified the avatar as synthetic (see Table 5). H3 was proven true.
While a sizeable number of respondents also either incorrectly
identified or were unsure that their human spokesperson was an organic
spokesperson, a portion of that mistaken attribution may be attributed
to skepticism provoked by the question itself. Participants were not
informed that their video may be AI-generated until the question at the
end of the survey implicitly suggested it. Some may, at that time, have
retroactively been suspicious of their human spokesperson, accounting
for some of the incorrectness. That same suspicion may have actually
inflated correct answers for synthetic avatar videos, potentially making
the effectiveness of the dupe even great.