Problem: Sometimes it is impossible to take a class with a master of industry; however, these people often have the most knowledge to pass down to new individuals trying to learn a craft. For instance, consider these videos:
Sir András Schiff’s Piano Master Class at The Juilliard School. After listening to Christian De Luca play Bach’s Italian concertos, Sir András’ first question was “What is Italian about this?” After reciting the history of Bach in Italy, Christian was greeted by Sir András simple follow-up. “You know the necessary information. But can you transmit that?”
Renee Fleming’s Opera Master Class at The Juilliard School. Hyesang Park was the recipient of this master feedback through live tutelage and lessons from Fleming. Perhaps the best piece of advice was at the near climax of the piece. After stopping her a few times, she said: “Now see, see you're gonna have to practice this because I want you to be able to really float. And that's a head voice. So try humming…” After this, Fleming and Park repeated various specific exercises.
So why these two examples? I believe they illustrate two of the core values of masterclasses: (1) Personalized tutelage and (2) Beyond-the-book questions related to expertise (humming to be a better opera singer or the history of a piano piece to play it better). In addition to Deliberate Practice (which I wrote about yesterday), this specific and indirect forms of practice can specifically bring a novice to mastery.
Is there a way to take masters of industry (celebrities, professors, etc.) and use AI to offset skills and knowledge to learners at scale?
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Solution: This business would focus on using the likeness of celebrities to (with their permission) create Masterclass deals with AI replicas of themselves.
Already in the market, celebrities are beginning to sign brand deals to create AI replicas of themselves. As written by The Neuron,
The idea is: if AI can mimic the looks and speech of Tom Brady, can he leverage his “image” in a million different places (i.e., men’s magazine, deflated football commercials, etc)?
This trend is gaining traction:
Neymar’s 3D avatar appeared at New York Fashion Week.
Eva Herzigova’s AI clone hit the catwalk on Epic Games’ virtual runway.
So will the future of influencer marketing revolve around digital lookalikes of the rich and famous? Possibly…
They end the newsletter by positing an AI singing class taught by Taylor Swift. That is where this business idea picks up, competing directly with Masterclass through AI learning and videos.
The company would create a way for webcams, phones, or audio to be used in conjunction with analysis to output feedback from a celebrity-looking front-end. These celebrities would teach a variety of subjects from cooking, to singing, to playing an instrument, to writing, and more. Its aim would be to make high-quality learning more accessible to all no matter their background through deep-fakes and actual advice from the celebrities.
Monetization: Subscriptions to specific teachers.
Contributed by: Michael Bervell (Billion Dollar Startup Ideas)