Researchers Explore Machine Learning Powered Avatars of the Deceased

AlphaAtlas

[H]ard|Gawd
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TechXplore reports that researchers are investigating the use of machine learning algorithms to create digital representations of the deceased. The study focused on an existing service called Replika, which is designed to create chatbots that mimic the personalities of the people they're chatting with. The basic idea is to organize a deceased person's history from social media platforms, messaging services, accounts, and other sources, and feed it to Replika's AI. However, the researchers also explored the possibility of creating robotic avatars based on this data. Unfortunately, the original study appears to have been yanked from the web, and I can't find an archived copy of it, but TechXplore's article and the Replika AI site are still up.

"We got the basic idea for our study from Eugenia Kuyda, the founder of Replika AI," Devadiga told TechXplore. "Replika's basic purpose is to create a personal AI that can help people to express themselves through helpful conversations. Someday, you will die, leaving behind a lifetime of text messages, posts, and other digital ephemera. For a while, your friends and family may put these digital traces out of their minds, but then later feel out of place because they miss the loved ones. So our main objective was to explore ways of relieving the pain of this loss, at least bitwise."
 
This is a bad idea. First off, people need to accept the loss of their loved ones so that they can move on; you can't live in the past. Second, you know someone will commercialize this and charge people for the "service", taking advantage of grieving people when they may not be thinking fully rationally. A lot of harm could come from this.
 
At least you'd get something for your money, as opposed to psychics.
 
Hmm ubik isn't like this and yet, couldn't this be cheaper than ubik's technology?... Hmmmmm
 
The idea is way older than Gibson in 84.

Tthere was the Niven story in the Beserker Base book. It was published in 85, but the story is older.

https://www.e-reading.club/chapter.php/1010297/11/Saberhagen_-_Berserker_Base.html

"
One day this planet would be a world. Even then, Hilary Gage would not join the colonists. Hilary Gage was a computer program.

Hilary Gage would never have volunteered for the Harvest Project unless the alternative was death.

Death by old age."

Old Sci-Fi rocks, but almost no-one reads these days.

They Hide a lot of Wisdom in Books...

I'm surprised the Beserker stories go back as far as they do.
 
This is a bad idea. First off, people need to accept the loss of their loved ones so that they can move on; you can't live in the past. Second, you know someone will commercialize this and charge people for the "service", taking advantage of grieving people when they may not be thinking fully rationally. A lot of harm could come from this.
I know, isn't it great?! I bet we can do financing and really take em to the cleaners!
-The Marketing Department
 
Last thing I need is my dad's avatar asking me why it took me so long to check up on him...I feel bad enough as it is. I guess some people might like this, I can't even look at photos of my old pets without feeling sad, why would I want a talking interactive avatar of my loved ones? Let the dead be dead.
 
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