Wondering what others think of digital resurrection of deceased loved one or partner by using AI
Been toying with idea and can’t decide if it’s a pandoras box, but am sorely tempted
The technology is advancing at a rapid rate with digital cloning, voice cloning and machine learning in large language models getting to or at the point were a person’s persona can be replicated by feeding content to the AI
With digital cloning and voice cloning, you could, for all intents and purposes, be having an effective teams or zoom call with your deceased loved one
Id been thinking the same - that someone is bound to use AI to offer to generate fascimiles of lost loved ones. Whether its a good idea - im on the fence. On one hand you could argue its no different from looking at photos, reading letters from loved ones - its a way of trying to feel close to them and continue that connection. But on the other hand, the process of grieving is the brain rewiring itself and adjusting to the fact that person is no longer around. I wonder whether this would confuse the brain and make the natural grieving process more difficult?
Part of me thinks this is a fantastic idea. But the other part of me wonders if it would keep you in the past. Would you be able to move forward.
I would want to know so much about it, before I took that step.
Might be worth a look at
If it was a partner you’d lost, would it make it harder to eventually consider a new relationship? So you would be in limbo, never truly having a full fulfilling relationship with your now digital AI partner, but never allowing yourself the potential comfort and happiness that a new partner may bring?
@Ally6 I’m also on the fence - can make an argument that people generally talk to their deceased loved ones all the time - it would just become a two way conversation
When I started seeing my partner, we were in different cities, so it was a long distance relationship for first 6 months or so but we had zoom calls everyday. In a sense, this would be no different
On other hand, you’ll completely withdraw from society - I’ve essentially done that already - if I can chat to her at home, why would I leave the house? I work remotely anyway, so would become a complete hermit
The thought of moving on and into a new relationship feels like a different world - but you can never say never - it could happen.
I just wonder if this would stop you from having the chance to “live” again with a real person or you just end up with a computer partner.
I think to do this digital resurrection you would have to be in the frame of mind where you know they are there for those days you’re struggling with their loss, but you’re also able to “live”.
I don’t know. Im going to look into it and find out more.
Maybe they should set restrictions ie you cant access it until xxx months after loved one has passed, or restrict amount of time you could use per day? Poses lots of questions doesnt it?!
@mags66 I know, speaking for myself, it would - would be my escape from reality
I don’t think I’d be able to quarantine it to just the days I was struggling - it would be every day
It has advanced quite rapidly - the initial experiment was called The December Project - I looked into that and it was very basic and generic. You just gave basic personality traits
The YOV link I attached is getting quite advanced - with digital avatars and feeding a lot of information from text messages, video footage to recreate the person.
I really struggle to understand how this would work in the case of someone deceased. Where would the information come from to reconstruct their personality? Videos, photographs, diaries? All of these in some ways are unreliable narratives and would never really get to the essence of the person. At the moment science doesn’t understand how we achieve consciousness, how it is arrived at through our biological make up, so I really don’t see how that could be reconstructed artificially for a specific person.
Ive got a whole load of handwritten letters from my parents from when i was back at Uni in the days before emails and SMS. Even if you could feed them in and get a handwritten letter back would be great, but then what would they write? Their past letters would be full of news of what theyd been up to. What would AI invent ??! Well at least this thread is providing an interesting distraction for my brain today.
Id also maybe do some checking on how legit the company is and what info theyd want from you. In these days of identity fraud i dont whether im being ultra suspicious but could they use details from loved ones to create fake identities? They would know how vulnerable a grieving person is and so desperate to see their loved one that you might hand over all sorts of info without question.
@Ally6 it going to be more difficult - the AI needs as much info as possible to create an accurate version of the person
Ideally it would be video logs that person would have created - it’s going to become something of a premeditated plan when someone has a terminal illness, to make endless video logs, not just info, but philosophical viewpoints, what triggers them, what gets them emotional etc
The AI would learn from this to create a persona of person
For our purposes, lacking that kind of info, you would have to create a large part of the persona by creating that yourself, along with messages etc
Then you have issue of bias were you’re creating the person as you saw them, or even how you wanted them to be, which, in the end, just wouldn’t be them
I think there’s a lot more to it to create the person completely, but the tech is here now
I agree, it’s not something to just jump into - you’re feeding your most personal information of your partner into the program, even if you forgo identity fraud, it’s the personal texts and info
I’m in no way advocating this company - I have no idea how good they are or even legitimate
I just saw how this has progressed from the original December Project, and can see by end of the year, it could be at the point were it’s possible to completely create a digital replica of the person that, if enough info is fed into the AI, you could completely believe you were having a conversation with you partner
Around the voice, they use voice cloning software from a video or audio clip of the person
I tried this a while back using a voice note she sent me.
It was close, but not exactly right, so gave that up. But the tech is improving
It’s more around the principle of where this is headed and if it’s a good idea of not
@Walan for our purposes we would have to recreate that person to capture their personality - it would have to be around philosophical viewpoints, triggers, emotions and the messages etc are used to emulate how the person projects themselves, their diction, phrases they use, sayings.
The AI will learn from this create the person’s persona
As I said in another post, the problem of bias comes into that of you’re creating the persona
In the future, as this becomes more mainstream, it will be extensive video logs, when someone has a terminal illness, that the person creates, which removes the bias issue
I don’t buy into the AI consciousness that fear mongers are pushing
If you’re having a conversation with an AI, and then leave for a few hours to go out or something, when you get back, the AI doesn’t say where were you why did leave mid conversation.
It’s not conscious, as realistic as it can appear - it’s machine learning and a program, albeit a very complex neural network, self learning program, but still a program
