Sentient AI, Digital Twins and The Fight Against Rainbow-Washing with Founder & CEO of Remo, Hoyin Cheung - Episode 23

The prospect of having a digital twin is equal parts intriguing and intimidating.

We’re making digital versions of cars, buildings and even organs, but imagine a digital you to handle things without you needing to know - is that a dream or a nightmare?

On Disconnected this week, we’ve got a bumper episode with all your favourite co-hosts returning, plus Remo’s Founder Hoyin Cheung to offer his perspectives on AI, sentience, the hybrid workplace battle, and much more.

This episode of Disconnected covers:

What our digital twins could do for us, and what they’d need from us to work effectively
Google’s potentially ‘sentient chatbot’, and what constitutes sentience in AI systems
Pride month and corporate ‘rainbow washing’
The tug of war to bring people back to the office vs remote working solutions

Episode Highlights:

“I realised that I don't really want a digital twin, but there are other uses for it when it comes to products and brands that get quite interesting. McLaren and Red Bull have digital twins of their F1 cars, and they use all the data they get from the real cars to then simulate what it will be like on different tracks. They run digital versions and do prediction modelling.” - 5:33 - Jen Campbell

“The question is, do we actually need a digital version of ourselves? If you're just looking for something that can actually just do the things we don't want to do, we don't necessarily need it to be emulating us to do it.” - 8:45 - Jason Kapadia

“I think the scariest point of all this is when the computer appears to fear the idea of being turned off. When asked ‘What do you fear the most’, the computer essentially was like, ‘I fear being turned off, that would be like death to me’.” - 14:10 - Ben Wiggins

“What is sentience? What's the difference between being able to repeat something, or frame something in a way, vs actual real sentience?” - 21:50 - Hoyin Cheung

“There is nothing wrong with showing up for the cause and celebrating pride month, and pride all year round. But the problem here is a lot of companies are just jumping on the bandwagon for the sake of it, not actually doing anything differently within the company's culture and community to justify the act of making your logo colourful on socials.” - 24:35 - Felina Tan

“Attrition is much higher for people who are onboarded remotely, a lot higher. It's because you don't get an opportunity to really develop your own internal network, it can be a bit isolating because no real meaningful relationships are being created. For Remo, our claim to fame is being able to create an environment that's just very similar to real life that allows you to network as if it was a real person.” - 41:25 - Hoyin Cheung

Links & references:

Hoyin Cheung:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hoyincheung/

Jason Kapadia:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonkapadia/

https://www.instagram.com/jasonkapadia/

Jen Campbell:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-m-campbell/

Felina Tan:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/felinagabrielletan/

Ben Wiggins:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bewiggins/