Skype With The Dead

** The title is from the article. It's not mine.

Okay ... If I'm understanding this correctly ... this start up company is building a kind of AI -Artificial Intelligence - based upon the information gleaned about dead people. This A.I. is then available to family members to chat with. The AI takes into account the dead persons personality. The personality is built by taking information from the dead persons social network sites and from chat forums and emails etc etc. I would imagine the company could build an AI of people long dead before modern technology, if that person left behind information. Famous people like Lincoln or Jefferson or Hitler .... imagine the possibilities.

It's not really skyping with the dead. There is no direct communication with the actual entity. Well ... that actually may not be true. That could be a discussion for the metaphysics forum. "If you build it, they will come" ... maybe if you invite an entity by building an AI for them, they'll possess it. I know the science folks will scoff at that, but the metaphysics folks will stop and think about it. So I bring that up for discussion as well.

Anyways ... read on ...

Service Lets You Video Chat With Dead People

A new startup from MIT’s Entrepreneurship Development Program is offering eternal life via the virtual world. The service, called Eterni.me, has designed a way to digitally reconstruct a person’s personality after they die so that the dearly departed are able to “communicate” from beyond the grave.

To get started, users must provide the service with access to online activities like chat logs, social-network accounts, photos and emails. Gleaned information is then used to stitch together a digital portrait and avatar that’s capable of communicating with friends and loved one’s after a person dies.

“Eterni.me collects almost everything that you create during your lifetime, and processes this huge amount of information using complex Artificial Intelligence algorithms,” the Web site explains. “Then it generates a virtual YOU, an avatar that emulates your personality and can interact with, and offer information and advice to, your family and friends after you pass away. It’s like a Skype chat from the past.”

So would you want to skype with an AI of your dead grandmother? Or perhaps George Washington? How about HItler? Or maybe Jesus? Buddah? I"m thinking that a lot of what you'd hear from the 'dead person' would be personal interpretations from whoever was designing that particular AI. A hard core republican might skew a JFK AI personality ... or a hard core democrat might try to make Reagan into something he really wasn't ... or a racist might interject his/her own issues into the personality .. that kind of thing. Even if they don't mean to.

I might talk to someone just as a curiosity thing. But it's really creepy. And I do subscribe to the metaphysical so I'd be wondering about what entities I'd be inviting into the program.

William one sac ya there.

2nd line ATS aware.

I would be perfectly fine skyping with myself lol!!! Although there would probably be plenty of disagreements none the less.

reply to post by FlyersFan


Imagine Skype with Hitler and other "nice" guys and gals from the past ! .... it would be like this: FU**#""** .....all the time.

Now, I`d love to Skype with my mother

Don't you need a holoband and a central database that is updated with your profile throughout your life?

Whole brain emulation involves the complete scanning and mapping of a biological brain in detail and copying its state into a computer system or other computational device. In this hypothesized scenario, the 'simulation model' that's run by the computer is faithful to the source, and the agent behaves in essentially the same way as the original.

Caprica

jaynkeel
I would be perfectly fine skyping with myself lol!!!

I didn't even think of that. You could build your own AI, based on yourself. Put your own REAL thoughts into it. Not having someone else put their version of you into it, but put your personality in it as you really are. Do it before death. And then talk to yourself ... or leave it for your family to talk to after death.

It's not really you, but wow ... they'd know you worked on it and put your thoughts into the AI.

Interesting thought ....

boncho
Don't you need a holoband and a central database that is updated with your profile throughout your life?

I'm not computer savy. I don't know what doing this entails. I have no idea but maybe one of the other posters who is well versed in technology can talk about what needs to be done with this skyping with the dead. All I know is, it might be fun to play with and 'talk to' a few famous people. I wouldn't take it seriously. Just for entertainment.

FlyersFan

boncho
Don't you need a holoband and a central database that is updated with your profile throughout your life?

I'm not computer savy. I don't know what doing this entails. I have no idea but maybe one of the other posters who is well versed in technology can talk about what needs to be done with this skyping with the dead. All I know is, it might be fun to play with and 'talk to' a few famous people. I wouldn't take it seriously. Just for entertainment.

Yes, I was just poking fun as it's the central theme around Caprica. Creating avatars from brain mapping that exist in the digital world and eventually find their soul and become murderous robots.

I'm sure whoever behind this has some grand vision of being able to communicate really interesting conversations with people long dead. Problem is that reality vs science fiction = huge disappointing results.


Science Fiction



Reality

reply to post by FlyersFan


Predictable. But ohsweetjesus. Here we go.

F&S for great find.

The major problem with this is you can't get an accurate gauge of ones personality or their distinctive use of speech unless you have copious amounts of data of them in social settings. Public speaking does not represent ones actual character or how they converse in private.

The only chance of something like this being very useful, or becoming a good representation of a person in digital form would be if a device like google glass mapped out your entire life and you wore it 90% of the time, while it recorded all your actions, behaviours, reactions, speech patterns, etc.

But data like that would end up being used for far different things I imagine…

The television series 'Black Mirror' looks at this concept and even goes much further into creating a synthetic human body that takes on the personality of the deceased person. The episode titled 'Be Right Back'.
en.wikipedia.org...
Martha (Hayley Atwell) and Ash (Domhnall Gleeson) are a young couple who move to a remote house in the countryside. Ash is a social media addict and compulsively checks his phone for updates on his social network pages. The day after moving into the house, Ash is killed returning the hire van. At the funeral, Martha's friend Sarah (Sinead Matthews) tells her about a new online service that lets people stay in touch with the deceased. By using all of his past online communications and social media profiles, a new "Ash" can be created virtually. Martha rejects the idea outright, but Sarah signs Martha up to the service anyway, without telling her. When Martha is sent an e-mail supposedly from Ash, she furiously confronts Sarah, who urges her to at least give the service a try before dismissing it.

Over the following days, Martha is overwhelmed by grief, and soon discovers that she is pregnant. Becoming emotionally unstable, she responds to the artificial Ash's e-mail. She starts to communicate with him through instant messaging, and informs him of the pregnancy. She then uploads videos and photos of Ash to the service's database, and the service duplicates Ash's voice to talk to Martha over the phone. Martha allows herself to believe that she is talking to her dead partner, and over the following weeks she talks to the artificial Ash almost non-stop, keeping him updated regarding the pregnancy. After Martha accidentally damages her phone and has a panic attack when she temporarily loses contact with the service, the artificial Ash tells her about the service's next stage, which is still in its experimental phase: a body made of synthetic flesh that the program can be uploaded onto.

Martha buys a blank, synthetic body from the service, and following the artificial Ash's instructions she allows the body to take on Ash's physical characteristics. The end result is a clone that looks almost exactly like Ash, only missing minor characteristics such as his facial hair and a mole on his neck. From the moment the clone is activated, Martha is uncomfortable and struggles to accept its existence. Despite the clone satisfying her sexually, she quickly becomes frustrated by it constantly doing what she says without question, its lack of emotion (only expressing emotions when she tells it to do so), and the absence of certain habits and personality traits which the real Ash had but the service did not have information on. After an argument, Martha decides she can no longer tolerate the Ash clone, taking it to the edge of a tall cliff and ordering it to jump off. The clone agrees to do so, but Martha grows even angrier, saying that the real Ash would not have willingly jumped. The clone responds by begging for its own life, causing Martha to realise that she can't bring herself to get rid of it.

The scene cuts to several years later, and Martha is shown to have raised her daughter (Indira Ainger) in the country house, keeping the Ash clone locked in the attic. She allows her daughter (who is never named) to see the clone on weekends, but the daughter convinces Martha to allow her into the attic on her birthday to give it a piece of birthday cake. The daughter reveals in her conversation with the clone that she knows it does not need to eat, and merely used this as a ruse to get extra cake; it compliments her guile. While her daughter is in the attic with the clone, Martha waits at the bottom of the attic steps, close to tears.

You should check out the series. Here is the trailer to it.

reply to post by mmirror




Exactly what I was thinking when I read the op.
That episode was one of the best and the concept is fascinating.

reply to post by boncho

Don't you need a holoband and a central database that is updated with your profile throughout your life?

Ha ha, that's the first thing that came to my mind as well. You'd think we'd have learned something after watching BSG and Caprica but I guess not.

Earth humans try building their first Cylon. LMAO.

reply to post by FlyersFan


This could be very useful for historical education, but I would advise against it being used by family members of deceased persons. I cannot see communing with a dead relatives avatar being conducive to moving through the stages of sorrow which one goes through after loosing a loved one.

reply to post by TrueBrit

I was thinking that as well. This could put an unhealthy twist into the five stages of grief.
Those are very important for people to go through.

this will lead to cybering....

reply to post by FlyersFan

To get started, users must provide the service with access to online activities like chat logs, social-network accounts, photos and emails. Gleaned information is then used to stitch together a digital portrait and avatar that’s capable of communicating with friends and loved one’s after a person dies.

And if none of this information is available,as in George Washinton's or Adolf Hitler's facebook page, then how do they have input for the AI?

teamcommander
And if none of this information is available,as in George Washinton's or Adolf Hitler's facebook page, then how do they have input for the AI?

There are books out and letters written by them .. documents written by them ... and I'm sure there would be generic filler by sociologists who would take what an average person like them in that time period thought and they'd put that in as well. Of course, ti's not really 'skyping with Lincoln' ...