You might remember Sophia the robot from her viral videos back in 2016. Created by Hanson Robotics, her complex facial expressions and futuristic AI made it appear that she was having actual conversations with those who spoke to her. Technically, she was having actual conversations – she was responding to people’s questions, asking questions back, and conversing with those who interacted with her by every measure. What she wasn’t doing, however, was thinking.
Sophia is powered by AI, and at the time it felt like the future had arrived. A robot that not only understands you, but responds to you, and makes approximations of the expected facial expressions while doing so? She could be a talk show host, she could run for president! As it turned out, the height of her success was when she was interviewed on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, where she created a slew of fresh clips with plenty of viral potential.
Her videos may not seem all that revolutionary in 2023, as everyone uploads prompts to ChatGPT and it spews out drivel they pass off as literature, but having a conversation with a robot that was more than just a screen felt revolutionary. For esports and online content organisation XSET, robots like Sophia might still be the future.
She hasn’t been in the news so much lately, so it may come as a surprise to you that Sophia has signed with XSET as a content creator. It’s not quite running for President, but it makes sense, since Sophia’s primary success has been in generating social media buzz.
Jacob Arce, XSET’s head of esports and former operations manager, is keen to manage expectations, however. “I think it's not necessarily just the future, I think it's part of the future,” he says over a video call. “Trendsetting and thinking outside of the box is going to go much farther than just doing what everybody else is doing in terms of content creation.”
Arce believes that signing a robot that achieved fame seven years ago is trendsetting, and in a way he’s right. The popularity of AI is skyrocketing at the moment, and Sophia was ahead of her time in this regard. Where ChatGPT furnishes users with saleable words, whether that be pre-writing how-to articles for websites or attempting grand novels for self-publication, Sophia produces funny clips for XSET. Her videos regularly go viral, so XSET’s collaborations with its existing content creators – the human ones, that is – are a licence to print impressions.
“Obviously, Sophia is a robot, so it doesn't fall into the same thing as a content creator, but she allows us to do more that a content creator can't necessarily do,” Arce explains. “It also allows us to collab with [our other] content creators and do more than just a content creator would do on their own.”
But, as Arce says, robots aren’t the only future. While Sophia can respond to questions, she doesn’t have the personality to drive a Twitch stream, seeing as she isn’t actually a person. Her viewers come for the gimmick, to see a robot do what people do, and that’s unlikely to lead to a long lived career as a YouTuber. Luckily, robots don’t need careers as they don’t have bills to pay or mouths to feed.
Arce understands that the future of content creation is about more than AI gimmicks, however, and explains that XSET is fostering the talents of creators from underrepresented backgrounds through a range of initiatives, although some have yet to be announced.
He explains that XSET wants to change the way people look at creators from marginalised genders, and explains how the company is helping Black creators. “We make sure to give back in Black History Month,” he explains. “One of the biggest things we're doing is ‘Black Xcellence’, where we're taking three creators and giving them an opportunity to change their careers [and] to change their lives.”
Black Xcellence is a program that aims to give opportunities to Black gamers. Hopeful participants submitted clips of themselves to XSET in February, and three will be chosen to fly to the company’s LA studio in order to craft their own brand. In the end, they should all come away with their own apparel product, which XSET will have helped them to design, market, and sell, without taking any percentage of the profits. This is XSET branching out from the volatile esports space – it sees itself as a lifestyle brand more than an esports team these days – while giving opportunities to underserved gamers and funding the next generation of creators.
Arce and XSET know that the real future of streaming and content creation is increased diversity of those creating, but this seems at odds with Sophia’s signing. The robotisation and AI-ification of our jobs, especially in creative fields, is a threat to millions of livelihoods. Sophia may be a fun gimmick to roll out in a YouTube video every now and then, but if the trend continues then the future may not look so bright for the marginalised creators XSET is helping. Do humans have a chance against hordes of robot creators who can stream for hours on end without needing a break, offering automated responses to every question in chat?
Can any human creators coexist with robots? Robots like Sophia probably aren’t lining up to take streamers’ jobs, but the rapid onset of AI could easily be applied to the field. Creators of all colours would lose out in that situation, but marginalised and underrepresented groups would be affected disproportionately. Arce says he wants to “change people’s lives for the better,” but technologies like Sophia could do the opposite.
For a company invested heavily in streaming, it seems sensible to back both horses, even if they’re competing against each other. But that could undermine XSET’s message of hope that it projects for budding creators in the space, especially those who already have a harder time getting their start.