The Most Important Question in AI Isn’t What It Can Do. It’s Who It Pretends to Be.
By Norrie Daroga, CEO, CodeBaby
Artificial intelligence has reached an extraordinary point in its evolution. Today, AI can generate remarkably realistic faces, convincing voices, persuasive writing, and increasingly natural conversations. In many cases, the technology has become so sophisticated that distinguishing between a real person and a synthetic one is becoming increasingly difficult.
For technologists, these advances represent remarkable engineering achievements. For businesses, they unlock new opportunities to educate, support, and engage customers. But they also raise an ethical question that our industry can no longer ignore.
As AI becomes more capable of imitating people, should it?
That question came to mind recently after reading about a collection of AI-generated social media influencers who had amassed large audiences by sharing stories about health, wellness, and aging. Their profiles looked authentic. Their personal histories were compelling. Their recommendations appeared to come from lived experience. Yet none of these individuals actually existed. They were entirely artificial personas designed to build trust, attract followers, and influence purchasing decisions.
The technology itself wasn’t what concerned me. Artificial intelligence has enormous potential to improve education, healthcare, customer service, accessibility, and countless other aspects of our lives. What concerned me was the intentional creation of fictional identities that encouraged people to believe they were interacting with another human being. The deception wasn’t an unintended consequence of the technology. It was part of the design.
Can AI Convincingly Imitate a Human?
The answer is increasingly yes.
Only a few years ago, most AI-generated people fell into what researchers called the “uncanny valley.” They looked almost human, but subtle imperfections made them feel artificial. Today, those imperfections are disappearing. AI can generate faces that never existed, produce voices that sound authentic, and carry on conversations that feel remarkably natural.
From a technical perspective, these advances are impressive. They will enable more accessible customer service, better educational experiences, richer digital assistants, and entirely new ways for people to interact with technology.
The challenge isn’t whether AI can imitate people. It clearly can, and it will continue to improve. At this point, we should be asking ourselves what we should choose to do with that capability.
Should AI Pretend to Be Human?
This is where technology becomes ethics, as trust has always been the foundation of meaningful communication. Whether we are speaking with a physician, a financial advisor, a teacher, or a customer service representative, we naturally evaluate information through the lens of the person providing it. We assign credibility based on experience, expertise, empathy, and authenticity.
When AI is intentionally presented as a real person with fabricated life experiences, that foundation begins to erode.
The recent rise of AI-generated influencers illustrates the concern. These digital personalities are not simply synthetic images. They often come with carefully constructed biographies, emotional backstories, and fictional experiences designed to make their recommendations feel personal and authentic. Their influence depends on people believing they are real, and that is fundamentally different from using AI to answer questions, provide guidance, or assist with a task. One approach uses technology to help people. The other uses technology to manufacture credibility.
As our industry continues to evolve, I believe that distinction will become increasingly important.
Does AI Need to Pretend to Be Human?
At CodeBaby, we don’t believe it does. We believe conversational AI should feel natural without pretending to be human, and we see those as two very different objectives.
An AI assistant can explain a complex insurance policy, guide a patient through pre-operative instructions, coach an employee through a difficult conversation, or help a student understand algebra without inventing a fictional identity or fabricated life experiences. In fact, we believe those interactions become more trustworthy when users clearly understand they are engaging with artificial intelligence.
Some assume realism automatically creates better user experiences. Our experience has shown something different. People are looking for helpful, accurate, and trustworthy interactions. They don’t need AI to convince them it has lived through a divorce, raised children, or lost eighty pounds in order to provide meaningful assistance. They need AI that communicates honestly, knows its limitations, and helps them accomplish their goals.
CodeBaby believes conversational AI should be measured by the value it creates for people. AI should help us learn more quickly, make better decisions, build confidence, solve problems, and create more meaningful human interactions. It should enhance human capability, not replace human relationships or manipulate human emotions through deception.
As an industry, we are still defining the standards that will shape artificial intelligence for decades to come. We have an opportunity to make transparency a core design principle instead of an afterthought. That means clearly identifying AI as AI, communicating what it can and cannot do, and designing systems that earn trust through honesty rather than illusion.
Technology will continue to evolve, and conversational AI will become even more capable. That progress is exciting, but capability alone should never define success. The companies that build lasting relationships with customers will be those that recognize that trust is earned through openness, not imitation.
Trust isn’t created by making AI look human. It’s created by making AI transparent.
