People getting other people to buy stuff is one of the oldest businesses in the world. It's called advertising... or these days, influencing. 

But more and more, the people selling everything from makeup to testosterone supplements aren't even real. They're AI-generated, virtual influencers -- fake human-like characters who post about their lives, just like real people do.

The global business of virtual humans is currently worth around 15 billion dollars. That’s the combined value of what companies are projected to spend on them this year. 

On today's episode, why are fake humans so much better than actual ones at selling us stuff? And what could that mean in the future? 

GUEST:
Joseph Turow, professor at University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School of Communication and author of The Problem with Personalization: How Advertisers Learned to Make and Break Us from Ancient Times to the AI Age. 

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Booming is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network. Our editor is Carol Smith. Our producers are Lucy Soucek and Alec Cowan. Our hosts are Joshua McNichols and Monica Nickelsburg.