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I’m just old enough to remember how controversial a Hologram 2Pac was in 2012. Though certainly some people admired the technology, and even appreciated the apparition, to others it was ghoulish and a testament to how an image can and will be milked for as long as possible, especially with AI.
Because he was a celebrity, I had mixed feelings myself, and never came down as hard as I’d have liked on either side. On one hand, the next of kin of any murder victim have to have much more complicated and unpleasant feelings seeing some simulacrum of their loved one digitally puppeted about. On the other…who can I fault for having a good time? On the third, vestigial hand it’s too late to get cut off—ultimately who profits? Where does the money go, and whose permission can be given? To whom do memories belong?
I thought that question would be easier to answer when the deceased in question was less famous, and directly conducted by someone in their own family conjuring them. But it’s not.
““Resurrecting” the dead has become a popular application of generative AI in China. It’s one element of an AI gold rush in the country, as entrepreneurs race to invent new consumer-facing apps on top of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. While LLMs could generate text messages, these businesses give the bots cloned voices and appearances that resemble those of the deceased,” reports Rest of World.
Users of such applications reported their hearts being touched, despite services commanding the equivalent of a few hundred dollars US. In the same report, Ting Guo of the Chinese University of Hong Kong notes that government restriction of many spiritual practices regarding mourning and care for the bereaved that includes any afterlife may be responsible for the rise in popularity.
“China lacks publicly available resources for bereavement,” Guo said…Under the officially atheist state ideology, most Chinese citizens do not identify with any religion. Only state-sanctioned religious organizations are allowed to operate in China, although people can practice folk customs, such as burning paper offerings for the dead, as individuals,”
While I hesitate to wholly negate this possibility, after all we’re talking about the same entity that forced funeral stripping into the outskirts, and that is undeniably extremely uncool—consider the rise of the AI girlfriend here in the States. No matter what our governments do or don’t do, the human need for connection is not, and will never be tied to the actions of world leaders. It’s tempting for many to push into ‘us vs them’ with regards to the intersection of culture and tech, but we’re more alike than different as a factor of being the same species.
Many of us want to see someone ‘one last time’, and it may be that that time can come on command…with a paid subscription of course. The desire to leave something behind is also a fairly universal one.
One of the forerunners of this deathtech is currently training his own AI avatar as a premortem power move:
“Lin Zhi, who runs an AI avatar business from Shanghai, has been training a GPT-powered chatbot by uploading texts about his daily itineraries, thoughts, and conversations with others. The bot, a bespectacled man in a suit, has slowly learned about Lin’s anti-war political stance, cooking routines, and the catchphrases he tends to use, Lin told Rest of World. He also used voice-cloning software to make the bot speak in his voice.
Lin hopes the bot will become his immortal doppelgänger, speaking on his behalf after his death. “If my descendants ask ‘What was Grandpa Lin Zhi like?’ they could just talk to the AI version of myself to find out.””
I’ve always said that if I have to outlive my mother (and she told me I HAVE to), I would become some sort of costumed supervillain if I didn’t just burst into flames once she died. I can’t say whether or not I wouldn’t want to speak with a simulacrum, and I definitely can’t say how healthy that would or wouldn’t be.
However, just as with all other generative digital doodads, no matter where in the world we are, digital security will always be tantamount; both in regards to cybersecurity and mental health.
Rest in PC.
