Aspiring entrepreneurs are raving about this $699 Harvard course taught by AI clones

Creating artificially intelligent dupes of real people is . . . off-putting, to say the least. AI stand-ins for actors, like Val Kilmer’s posthumous AI-powered performance in the film As Deep as the Grave, have largely been deemed to be in poor taste. AI clones of pastors and tech executives are similarly divisive. But one application for AI cloning is finding success, at least with its intended audience. Harvard Business School put clones of its faculty to work in its new bootcamp for aspiring founders, making their expertise (or at least an imitation of it) accessible to students far beyond its campus. What is Foundry? Foundry is Harvard Business School’s AI-powered online bootcamp. In addition to weekly live sessions across the eight-week program, Foundry offers AI resources to walk would-be founders through every step of starting a company, including idea generation and pitching to investors. The program’s AI toolbox includes, yes, AI-generated facsimiles of several members of Harvard’s faculty, who volunteered to be cloned for the program. One of those faculty members, senior lecturer Jeff Bussgang, admitted to The New York Times that he finds the simulation somewhat “creepy,…