AI clones help 'revive' the dead

What if Abraham Lincoln could speak to Congress today? Or the great-grandfather of a family can handle household chores with his descendants?

Illustrate a human simulation created by technology.

Researchers and businesses are starting to think about how artificial intelligence (AI) can create replicas of the deceased - not static replicas but living digital entities capable of ability to chat with relatives, even participate in running the company.

Many startups anticipate an increasing demand for digital people and develop programs to cater to this need, such as Replika, an application with the ability to mimic a person in the form of a chatbot (chat application). ) and HereAfter AI, which captures people's life stories and uses them to create a replica built into a smart speaker.

Even the tech giants seem to recognize the potential of this. At the end of 2020, Microsoft was granted a patent for a method to create a chatbot that mimics a specific person that exists in the past or present, such as friends, relatives, acquaintances, celebrities, employees, etc. fictional object or historical figure.

Benefit from Immortal Digital Characters

Digital characters exist in many forms, from chatbots and mechatronics to projections that can move and talk like life. AI often plays a central role in building and training them to interact with humans.

Hologram projections of deceased musical artists, such as Roy Orbison and Tupac Shakur, performed on stage several years ago. In 2020, 33-year-old Canadian Joshua Barbeau used a website called Project December to create a chatbot that simulated his deceased fiancée, Jessica Pereira, and chatted with it.

As digital characters become more lifelike, they can learn and evolve beyond the death of the original, adapting to new events. That will make the digital character immortal - not only preserving the personality but also continuing to live in virtual form.

Photos of Joshua Barbeau and Jessica Pereira in a photo frame at the Barbeau home.

Such immortal figures can continue to interact with family, friends, and descendants long after their death, and provide information for historical and genealogical research. They can also be used on spacecraft to explore space with the ability to fly farther and longer than any ordinary person, David Burden, CEO of Daden - a British company specializing in making chatbots - shared with the newspaper. Wall Street Journal.

Living people can use their own digital copy to email and chat with colleagues to get more done, Burden said, or use the clone to take over as they go. Vacation. He also pointed out the possibility that a CEO like Elon Musk might want to use a digital character to manage the company after his death.

"Founders of organizations and businesses may not really want to give up control. So why not empower something that will continue to grow the business in the direction that suits you?" , Burden said.

The Downside of Resurrection

Virtual characters are not perfect clones as they are often based on words, articles, social media posts and many other sources that do not necessarily represent the true nature of a person. Digital characters created with AI will have no consciousness.

Society can grapple with questions about who owns a deceased person's avatar and the income it generates. What rights should virtual characters have? Does their existence mean that people won't be completely grieving the loss of the friend or loved one they emulate?

Virtual characters can also be created without the permission of the original person or completely unknown, as long as there is enough public data to train the AI ​​to imitate the person. Past characters can be resurrected whether they like it or not.

High-quality replicas of celebrities or politicians can help them influence future events and shape the world, even after they pass away. Davide Sisto, a philosopher at the University of Turin (Italy), hopes that it will not happen that a politician has a virtual clone and continues to govern indefinitely after the original person's death.

Digital characters can cause a lot of trouble in the real world.

Another issue is who is responsible for the behavior of the digital character, especially if it has negative consequences? AI experts answer this conundrum with two main approaches. Firstly, the responsibility lies with those involved in the design and development of AI systems if they do so according to their preferences and worldview. Second, machine learning systems are context-dependent, so ethical responsibility for their behavior should be distributed to every agent that interacts with them.

Sara Suárez-Gonzalo, a postdoctoral researcher at the Universidad Oberta de Catalunya (Spain), leans more towards the former. In the case of Jessica's chatbot, the stakeholders included artificial intelligence research firm OpenAI, programmers Jason Rohrer and Joshua Barbeau. The Project December website developed by Rohrer is based on GPT-3, OpenAI's text-generating language model.

It is difficult to hold OpenAI accountable because the company explicitly prohibits the use of the system for sexual, erotic, self-harm or bullying purposes, Suárez-Gonzalo told the newspaper. Conversation. Meanwhile, Rohrer and Barbeau will be held accountable.

Be careful when creating digital copies

It may be a long time before truly convincing copies become widespread. A simulation of Maggi Savin-Baden, a professor at the University of Worcester (UK), created in 2020. This digital character consists of a head and shoulders with a voice emanating from a chatbot.

Savin-Baden asked people in the professional world and did not know him to try to interact with the clone and also with the real person. As a result, not everyone is fooled. "They say some parts are really like me, but other parts are not at all," she said.

According to Suárez-Gonzalo, developing a digital version of the dead should meet certain conditions. First, both the modeled and the person customizing and interacting with the replica must voluntarily agree to a description as detailed as possible regarding the design, development, and use of the replica. Second, development and use that does not conform to what the modeled agrees to or is contrary to their dignity is prohibited. Ultimately, those involved in the clone development and those who profit from it are held accountable for the potential consequences.