Hollywood News Now: Kylie Verzosa is first Asian celebrity to have AI model

Kylie Verzosa. Image from Instagram

MANILA, Philippines — Beauty queen-turned-actress Kylie Verzosa has now joined the growing number of famous personalities who has turned to artificial intelligence (AI) to help keep up with the demands of their celebrity status.

"I partnered up with some developers in San Francisco to create an AI model version of myself," the 2016 Miss International titleholder said when she spoke in the panel titled "The future of technology and how it affects youth empowerment, legacy brands, tourism, and social media" at the Sigma Asia Summit held at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City on July 21.

"But it's going to take some time because I'm the first girl in Asia that's going to be able to do it, so it could still use a bit of improvement," Verzosa shared, and said she tapped AI to help her connect with her fans more efficiently.

It was not how she initially planned it out to be, though. As an advocate for mental health, Verzosa thought of using AI to help Filipinos with their mental health concerns. "But with recent issues, I knew that it was quite a struggle for an AI model to talk about mental health because it was such a touchy subject, especially for the youth here in the Philippines," she said.

It was her father who introduced AI to her. And like so many other people, she met it with a lot of skepticism. "He told me to do some research on the AI industry, and quickly enough ChatGPT exploded onto the scene. ChatGPT was able to do so many different things, write literature, write captions. I even use it personally for my captions," Verzosa shared.

She said she is receiving "a lot" of messages every day, "and I want to be able to reply to them because I see how happy it makes them." She compared the experience with her own situation as a confessed "fangirl" of Hollywood celebrities. "If I could just speak to, let's say Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Sean Penn or Cate Blanchett, and ask them for advice on anything, let's say my next role or next film, that would be amazing," Verzosa explained.

Kylie Verzosa speaks at a panel at the Sigma Asia 2023 summit./ARMIN P. ADINA

When INQUIRER.net asked if she has already engaged with her own AI model, Verzosa replied, "so I got the beta version a few weeks ago, we could still do a few improvements on it, we could still deepen its Tagalog, its pitch was a little bit higher. It spoke a little bit faster than I did. The Tagalog wasn't so Tagalog enough the way I wanted it to."

And she knew exactly how she wanted it to sound like, she said. "Before entering this model, they had to ask me a list of 20 to 30 questions, let's say how you handle challenges, or what made you last cry, or what made you laugh. And I didn't answer them so perfectly. I wanted it to be as human as possible, because I'm like that, I'm not perfect, you know?" she shared.

"So, maybe it depends per AI model, but I don't want mine to be perfect. So I think it also depends on each model and each AI, but I don't think AI should be a perfect being or any model should be perfect," Verzosa continued.

She also said she has been talking to the developers for the past month. "So I think the next version is going to come in the next week or so, but it's starting to look good," Verzosa said. EDV

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