Just $10 to create an AI chatbot of a dead loved one Death is inescapable. Everyone experiences grief at some point in their lives, whether it's when a relative, friend, or pet passes away. Many often find comfort in keeping their memories of a loved one alive in some way. As technology progresses, a few have found solace in using artificial intelligence to reconnect with the …
Having read all of The Heechee Saga..I might. Then again it raises some disturbing philosophical questions if/when it becomes possible to record someone and have a simulacrum of them in cyberspace.
And before anyone asks I really don't know if I'd choose to play that lottery and like Robinette Broadhead I'd dither a helluva lot before getting into one of those mushrooms and giving the control teat a squeeze.
But hey - it's a great book series by a grandmaster of S/F so just read it :)
This book is where virtual personalities are discussed the most.
I am not too sure that this idea is in any way something for the broader public or even a single individual, not even after i experienced less inspired preachers at several funerals.
Orson Scott Cards "Ender"/"speaker for the dead" seems like a much better therapeutic idea to me than a virtual simulator of a deceased person, much more so as i highly doubt the glorified sorting algorythms called "AI" nowadays.
But go for it, add a hug-o-matic, a cry-with-you-bot and many other things to render even the most personal emotions to some app-experience to pay for. I personally dont like this direction at all.
> I mean, that's what dead loved ones are there for, making somebody else some easy cash, aren't they.
Yeah, traditionally it's "psychic" mediums who fleece old ladies of their money by pretending to be in touch with a deceased loved-one.
This technological approach could provide a more ethical service than Mystic Mandy.
Well, yeah. I'm kind of tempted to create a chatbot of "my dead self"1 and set it up on a server to periodically spam my descendants after I fuck off this mortal coil. "Ha, I bet you wish I were still here instead of this thing!"
Or create one to do my Reg forum posts, to save some time. I have enough posting history to build a fairly good model.
1Of course it is no such thing, but mistaking the map for the territory is one of our most cherished fallacies.
More proof, as if you needed it, that dystopian fiction become fact soon enough.
I was thinking along similar line. The sort of situation where people around the world sigh and say "Only in America". There seems to be, IMO, an unhealthy attitude to dragging out the grieving process, an emphasis on "closure", primarily lead by so-called therapists who, as far as I know are completely unregulated and don't need any qualifications and pushed by "celebrities" who have a pathological need for attention.
Having said that, different people handle grief in different ways and may take longer to be able to move on with their lives. A few may even need help to do so and come to terms with it. But I would suggest that is the exception rather than the rule that seems to be pushing foisted on us. I suspect this chatbot, for most who try it, will not only be sorely disappointing, but will extend their grieving process even more.,
The first season of Star Trek TNG featured the death of bridge officer, Tasha Yarr (?), who then appeared as a hologram to give solace to her shipmates. IIRC it was a recorded message, not an interactive programme.
I love Charlie Brooker's work. Just as I do Armando Ianucci's. His sci-fi sitcom Avenue 5 has just begun it's second season, and the latest episode has people being replicated by chat bots that have been fed the humans message history.
It might have that effect, and if it does I'm much happier about it, but I still have doubts that it will necessarily work and misgivings about the concept. The problem is that the chatbot is not actually human, sentient, intelligent, or conversant in any language. They don't really pretend to be either. If they did, it's likely that a user will eventually get something weird which makes it clear exactly how random this thing really is. A fraud can easily make the argument that they're in touch with the real dead person, so why use a simulation, meaning that the bots might not really decrease their business and, if they're popular enough, might actually increase it. I've got qualms about combating one lie that preys on mourning people with another one, even a lighter and more straightforward one.
To the 'horrible' side. I can see nothing in this for me nor would I recommend it to a family member; it is beyond creepy.
How much is this funded by the US thanatotic industry, famed for extracting maximum dollars from the families of the recently deceased at a time when they are unlikely to be capable of critical thinking?
Would I pay $10 to talk to a simulation of my deceased cousin Gregory? I most certainly would if I thought there was any chance it would tell me where he hid the $228,000 he stole from the Bank Of America in 1988.
Disclaimer: I have no cousin named Gregory. And if I did, he was nowhere near West Covina on the morning of the robbery.
========
Comment: I find people talking to Alexa creepy. I expect I'd find people talking to emulations of their deceased loved ones even creepier. But it doesn't matter what I or anyone else thinks. If it somehow comforts them, that's what matters.
this IS Alexa on steroids. Look at it as a modern investment path: step 1: create hype (via outrage, etc.) 2. stimulate revenue stream from little people (crowdfunding, etc.) for 'further development' 3. as hype moves up from little people to Big Bucks, stimulate MORE revenue stream as your startup valuation moves from 'milions' to 'a couple of billion' 4. wait until one of the big boys (alexa, who is 'the big boys'?) send their minions with an offer you can not refuse. 6. retire early
7. post scriptum. Alexa, switch on 'auntie' mode!
This has got to be an exciting opportunity for the audio book industry. Imagine the opportunities :
Alexa, can Margaret Thatcher finish reading me The Communist Party Manifesto?
Alexa, can Richard Dawkins finish reading me My Daily Horoscope?
Alexa, can the cast of Coronation Street finish reading me The Complete works of the Marquis de Sade?
Alexa, can the cast of Coronation Street finish reading me The Complete works of the Marquis de Sade?
I now can't help but hear in my head the dulcet tones of a digitally-resurrected Violet Carson reciting the tales of Madame Desgranges. You bastard.
My initial response was a hard no to this, but then I thought that it might be a way to comfort people suffering from dementia. If they could "talk" to a relative or close friend it might be less confusing than with a "stranger". Of course it would be best if no Alexa-type responses to buy stuff were allowed.
> If they could "talk" to a relative or close friend
This is assuming that the AI is capable of "talking", and not just parroting random keyword-containing phrases and commercials.
I think that on the contrary confused people will be utterly distressed if the person they think they're talking to is totally alien to them. Voice doesn't make a relation, it's shared knowledge and memories which does. Also AI has no empathy and no intelligence, it won't be able to adapt to a person with dementia's needs.
Unfortunately I have 1st hand experience of people with dementia... :-(
Once again the human race proves there's no boundaries on tastes, we excel at taking anything possible and extracting profit irrespective of the lines of taste of decency.
It was obviously invented by someone who's never lost a loved one or has and simply cannot let go. I lost mum suddenly to a stroke just a few days after an accident, never got a chance to say goodbye, my daughter was only 3 years old and only has one memory of her nan. My father lost his best friend ever of 40 years that day. That was nearly 20 years ago now. We kept my mum's spirit alive through talking about her, sharing memories and the few pictures we had. We have my mum's painting's and drawings. I'm angry, disappointed, sad, all sorts of emotions she cannot be here but she's dead, she's frozen back in 2005, she'll never age another day.
My family have accepted she's gone, to replace her with a stupid fake machine pretending to be her would insult her, insult her memory and show the utmost disrespect to an amazing person who lead an unselfish and fulfilling life. Sorry but I choose to leave the departed, laid to rest where they've earned the right to be left in peace.
but this is exactly the trait of humans (ufortunately) that's being exploited through 'consumer business' in general. People can't let go. People can't go without. People can't give up. Can't or won't? And if they were to let go / give up / go without, the f... world would come crashing - they obsess. And here's this little 'breakthrough' innvovation that makes this 'horrible' anxiety DISAPPEAR. $10 pill, calm down now, bliss again...
I don't need a chatbot to have a conversations with my deceased father, I still talk to him everyday, whether I want to or not! He taught me a lot, and whenever I use that knowledge, I can hear his voice saying, measure twice cut once! Use the correct tool for the job! And never, never forget your mother's birthday!
We would see posts like, "So let me get my granddad to read that book he wrote, Mein Kampf"
Virtually everything created with a nice idea these days, gets taken over by malfolks, I remember thinking that Facebook sounded like a nice idea when it was created, but these days virtually all social communications are being manipulated to cause problems for people.
every idea gets twisted, facebook is only one of many, and not the first one. Remember the excitement of 'free exchange of ideas', before we got into infobubbles? Excitement of 'coach-surfing' and 'car-sharing', before they mutated into airbnb and uber? Smart and meaningful search engine called google or something like that? Everything gets bastardised, but then, I guess, we've got nobody to blame for it, but our own selves.
No. I wouldn't pay $10 to chat with the departed through a medium/psychic, either. ... "funny, creepy, profound, weird, spiritual, or even comparable to a healing process". The adjective I would use is "fake". I might pay $10 for a book or movie about chatting with the departed. That's not fake, it's fiction -- a subtle difference.
My grandmother keeps her dead husband's prompt on her answering machine so she can hear his voice. There will definitely be a market for this.
The problem is the word market. It's one thing to offer to convert audio and video recording into a DVD (for a one-time fee) so that people can see and hear their dead loved ones.
BUT it's a whole different, and repulsive, thing when you're charging for access to a chatbot which is making up its 'knowledge' as it goes along.
Would you pay $10 to create an AI chatbot to talk again to a dead loved one?
I'm pretty sure a lot of people would. A lot would pay much more, which is quite frightening.
I try to keep an open mind about those people overall - based on a complex mix of understanding bereavement, the mindsets of a lot of the population, and so on. I understand either how they feel, or - in the latter case - how they don't think rationally (about anything).
But the day I accept that AI can communicate with the dead is the day when Hell freezes over.
"I try to keep an open mind about those people"
It's all of us. In _Religion Explained_ (2001), Boyer says the brain has a separate naming system which can only think about names in the _present_ tense. This leads to confusion when thinking about deceased people. Of course the rational brain can and does come up with various ways to resolve the confusion. An explanation recognizing the cognitive error is scientific. An explanation based on communicating with the dead is less so.
No, you've got it wrong. Monetization comes before acceptance. Acceptance is when the person stops being willing to accept any alternative option that appears, so in fact the plan is to try delaying it as long as they're in the monetization phase. Maybe, my fine partners in exploiting others' misery for your own happiness, we will eventually get to the point where the stage of acceptance is eliminated entirely and as soon as someone experiences mourning, we can capture them and mine everything they have. Join me at the Convention of Evil to find the best way to ensure everyone else is ore and we are immune.
I can see this becoming completely normalised in the same way that people nowadays keep audio recordings, videos and photos of dead loved ones. At one time people were horrified at the thought of photos, recordings and videos too. I can also see this becoming pro-active, people training their posthumous AI as they live their lives to be a more and more accurate replica of themselves.
So for 10 bucks, I could then get an interactive AI model of a older semi-senile's dead lover or child. Preferably who has yet to register as such through disaster and so retains their privacy from oversight.
exploit the hell out of those shaky memories to empty their retirement fund.
Leaving them to have to grieve and get over the death of their loved one all over again.
But since in this described scenario I'm playing the role of the scammer then I would have no thing but apathy for what I would surely see as objective targets. As There's no other way to attempt the scam people without feeling bad, unless you view them as objects within the context of the mission.
If I wanted to talk with the dead, I'd eat roast beef before bedtime!
"You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!" ― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Why a chatbot only? Why not go in for full 3D representation of the beloved deceased (b.d.), with multiple selections of possible ages and looks of the b.d, so you can have a conversation at any age, any time, more (or less) living experience and look eachother into the eyes (ehmm- one of you actually).
This sounds so bad, it must be a good idea
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
