{"id":211444,"date":"2025-04-15T01:19:07","date_gmt":"2025-04-15T06:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/in-science-communication-realistic-avatars-may-foster-more-trustworthiness-than-cartoon-like-ones"},"modified":"2025-04-15T01:19:07","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T06:19:07","slug":"in-science-communication-realistic-avatars-may-foster-more-trustworthiness-than-cartoon-like-ones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/in-science-communication-realistic-avatars-may-foster-more-trustworthiness-than-cartoon-like-ones","title":{"rendered":"In science communication, realistic avatars may foster more trustworthiness than cartoon-like ones"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/in-science-communication-realistic-avatars-may-foster-more-trustworthiness-than-cartoon-like-ones.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>On TikTok there are exceptional \u201ctestimonials\u201d like Nikola Tesla or Marie Curie delivering short science-related messages that have garnered millions of views. This is just one of many examples where AI-generated avatars are used to communicate science\u2014a strategy that might also have its drawbacks.<\/p>\n<p>The generation of images and animations through <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/artificial+intelligence\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">artificial intelligence<\/a> is a rapidly growing field, constantly improving in quality. Yet many <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/avatars\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">avatars<\/a>, though realistic, still present minor flaws\u2014glitches, delays, inconsistent facial expressions or lip-syncing\u2014sometimes barely noticeable, but still easily picked up by a human observer.<\/p>\n<p>Jasmin Baake, researcher at the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS), Bochum, Germany, and the other authors of a study in the <i>Journal of Science Communication<\/i> realized that these avatars could trigger a phenomenon known in <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/cognitive+science\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">cognitive science<\/a> as the \u201cuncanny valley.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On TikTok there are exceptional \u201ctestimonials\u201d like Nikola Tesla or Marie Curie delivering short science-related messages that have garnered millions of views. This is just one of many examples where AI-generated avatars are used to communicate science\u2014a strategy that might also have its drawbacks. The generation of images and animations through artificial intelligence is a [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[418,6,224],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet","category-robotics-ai","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211444\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}