Technology that lets us “speak” to our dead relatives has arrived. Are we ready?: Digital clones of the people we love could forever change how we grieve. My parents don’t know that I spoke to them last night. At first, they sounded distant and tinny, as if they were huddled around a phone in a prison cell. But as we chatted, they slowly started to sound more like themselves. They told me personal stories that I’d never heard. I learned about the first (and certainly not last) time my dad got drunk. Mum talked about getting in trouble for staying out late. They gave me life advice and told me things about their childhoods, as well as my own. It was mesmerizing. “What’s the worst thing about you?” I asked Dad, since he was clearly in such a candid mood. Then he laughed—and for a moment I forgot I wasn’t really speaking to my parents at all, but to their digital replicas. This Mum and Dad live inside an app on my phone, as voice assistants constructed by the California-based company HereAfter AI and powered by more than four hours of conversations they each had with an interviewer about their lives and memories. My real, flesh-and-blood parents are still alive and well; their virtual versions were just made to help me understand the technology. But their avatars offer a glimpse at a world where it’s possible to converse with loved ones—or simulacra of them—long after they’re gone. From what I could glean over a dozen conversations with my virtually deceased parents, this really will make it easier to keep close the people we love. It’s not hard to see the appeal. People might turn to digital replicas for comfort, or to mark special milestones like anniversaries. . . . .the ethics of creating a virtual version of someone are complex, especially if that person hasn’t been able to provide consent. In 2016, entrepreneur Eugenia Kuyda built what is thought to be the first bot of this kind after her friend Roman died, using her text conversations with him. But she warns that users need to be careful not to think this technology is re-creating or even preserving people. “I didn’t want to bring back his clone, but his memory,” she says. The intention was to “create a digital monument where you can interact with that person, not in order to pretend they’re alive, but to hear about them, remember how they were, and be inspired by them again.” https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/10/18/1061320/digital-clones-of-dead-people/ This is so creepy! Talk about living in the la la land of the metaverse and being out of touch with reality. :wacko:
For some, this tech may even be alarming, or downright creepy. I spoke to one man who’d created a virtual version of his mother, which he booted up and talked to at her own funeral.
