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Should we be talking to the dead?
https://qz.com/896207/death-technology-will-allow-grieving-people-to-bring-back-their-loved-ones-from-the-dead-digitally/Imagine you have a close friend you frequently communicate with via text. One day, they suddenly die. You reel, you cry, you attend their funeral. Then you decide to pick up your phone and send them a message, just like old times.
“I miss you,” you type. A little response bubble appears at the bottom of the screen. “I miss you too,” comes the reply. You keep texting back and forth. It’s just like they never left.
The possibility of digitally interacting with someone from beyond the grave is no longer the stuff of science fiction. The technology to create convincing digital surrogates of the dead is here, and it’s rapidly evolving, with researchers predicting its mainstream viability within a decade. But what about the ethics of bereavement—and the privacy of the deceased? Speaking with a loved one evokes a powerful emotional response. The ability to do so in the wake of their death will inevitably affect the human process of grieving in ways we’re only beginning to explore.
In the past year, neuroscientists and philosophers have been speculating about the potential of, let’s say, building a digital duplicate of your grandmother. This copy could exist in a kind of virtual Elysium, able to Skype in to Thanksgiving dinners long after her death. But Hossein Rahnama of Ryerson University and the MIT Media Lab is working on something more immediately realizable than mental duplicates: chatbots crafted from personal data.
“I miss you,” you type. A little response bubble appears at the bottom of the screen. “I miss you too,” comes the reply. You keep texting back and forth. It’s just like they never left.
The possibility of digitally interacting with someone from beyond the grave is no longer the stuff of science fiction. The technology to create convincing digital surrogates of the dead is here, and it’s rapidly evolving, with researchers predicting its mainstream viability within a decade. But what about the ethics of bereavement—and the privacy of the deceased? Speaking with a loved one evokes a powerful emotional response. The ability to do so in the wake of their death will inevitably affect the human process of grieving in ways we’re only beginning to explore.
In the past year, neuroscientists and philosophers have been speculating about the potential of, let’s say, building a digital duplicate of your grandmother. This copy could exist in a kind of virtual Elysium, able to Skype in to Thanksgiving dinners long after her death. But Hossein Rahnama of Ryerson University and the MIT Media Lab is working on something more immediately realizable than mental duplicates: chatbots crafted from personal data.
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