Coded Creepiness (Part 2/4): Digital Resurrection

Welcome to this week’s Deep-Fried Dive with Fry Guy! In these long-form articles, Fry Guy conducts in-depth analyses of cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) developments and developers. Today, Fry Guy dives into a company that is bringing the dead back to life (digitally). We hope you enjoy!

*Notice: We do not receive any monetary compensation from the people and projects we feature in the Sunday Deep-Fried Dives with Fry Guy. We explore these projects and developers solely to showcase interesting and cutting-edge AI developments and uses.*

It is no surprise that AI use is exploding left and right, giving rise to stories of all kinds. Some stories are encouraging, like AI improving medical diagnostics. Other stories are controversial, like AI’s use in the military. But some stories are … a bit bizarre.

In this series, we are exploring some untold AI stories that might blow your mind and cause your imagination to run wild. Beware, because they might be a bit creepy.

CHATTING WITH THE DEPARTED

Do you ever wish you could chat with the departed? We are not talking about lighting candles and talking to spirits. No, we are talking about using AI to bring your loved one’s personality back to life.

The death of a loved one is one of the most difficult things to deal with in life. The loss of a family member or dear friend can leave you regretting what you never said and longing for just one more conversation. What about all the stories that were left untold? Will their memory eventually be lost forever? Imagine being able to talk with your loved one after they have passed away. What would you say? What would you ask? StoryFile is using AI to give people a chance to have these conversations.

StoryFile is taking people into a brand new dimension, one where they can have conversations with those who have passed. The company’s AI technology allows people to have these conversations with deceased loved ones through AI-powered video recordings. But this isn’t a simple recording of a message that gets played back when one dies. Rather, this tool is creating interactive, digital versions of people that will live on forever. StoryFile calls this technology a “holographic conversational video experience.” It allows the departed to respond to questions and engage in conversations in their own image, voice, and likeness, after they have passed away. As Heather Maio-Smith, one of the co-founders of StoryFile, stated, “Think of it as video that talks back to you.”

The process of creating these video experiences is incredibly sophisticated. It starts with recording someone answering hundreds of questions on a video recording while they are alive, using multiple camera angles to capture every nuance of their responses. This includes capturing small details like how their mouth moves, their facial and bodily expressions, and their vocal inflections. The system then processes this data to create a digital version of the person that can engage in natural conversation. So when someone asks a question, the AI searches through the recorded responses to provide the most appropriate answer, creating the illusion of a real-time conversation.

It’s worth noting that StoryFile does not (at least yet) allow the AI to generate new answers—words and phrases not spoken by the actual people who have departed. AI technology is at a point where it would be able to do this, but the company’s founders have chosen to instead only let the AI choose which answers are most relevant to the question asked rather than allowing the system to generate entirely new answers to questions. Maio-Smith said, “Would you want your grandmother to answer something that an algorithm thinks that she would say? They are real people who spend time to capture their story. Why would we mess with that?” This approach preserves the actual thoughts, phrases, and stories of these deceased individuals without fabricating responses to make them say what they didn’t actually say.

StoryFile’s technology is already being used in remarkable ways. At actor Ed Asner’s memorial service, mourners could actually engage in conversations with a digital version of him. This was also true for Marina Smith, who addressed guests at her own funeral through this technology. The system used twenty cameras to film her answering about 250 questions before her death, allowing her to share new stories and details with grieving relatives after her cremation. Could you imagine going up to the front of a room at a funeral and being able to talk with the person who is lying in the casket? This is the world we now live in, thanks to AI.

ENRICHING OR DAMAGING?

This technology has valuable applications, which are exciting on the surface. When someone passes away, loved ones often long for one last conversation. This tool can gift people just that, allowing them to get some of the closure they desire, even if it is virtual. It can also help ease the pain of the loss for many, allowing them to continue to converse with their loved one after they are gone. Rather than taking a trip to the cemetery to talk to a tombstone, this tool is available anytime and anywhere, and it also allows the deceased to talk back.

Beyond applications for those going through a grieving process, this technology can also preserve stories and ideas throughout generations. Imagine having the ability to chat with your great-great grandfather to learn more about your family’s history, and perhaps get enlightened about past family stories that have shaped the traditions of today. You might discover that you have a lot in common with your great-great grandparents that you never knew, and you might inherit a family recipe that dates back over 100 years. In the future, this may be possible. As one of the creators stated, “In 50 to 100 years, your great-great grandchildren will be able to talk to you and get to know you.”

This type of AI technology might be useful for preserving stories beyond just the families and friends of the deceased. We might imagine museums, for instance, using this technology to preserve the stories of holocaust survivors. Or, we might imagine celebrities using this type of technology to converse with their fans more personally. The sky is truly the limit for these sorts of video conversations, and it can truly cause one’s imagination to run wild.

Although there may be many positive applications, this technology may also have some unforeseen drawbacks. If this technology is abused, it may hinder the natural grieving process for individuals. We might imagine a person who continues to have digital conversations with a loved one after their passing. This may cause them a lot of confusion, rendering them unable to move on and process the loss properly. If we never have to “say goodbye” to our loved ones, we may eventually lose the ability to grieve properly. This could be dangerous to the psychology of individuals, unsure of how to deal with the reality of life. Part of what it means to be human, some might argue, is learning how to cope with loss. If we never have to face this loss for what it is, then in some way, it might damage our very ability to be human.

The creators of this technology are aware of this problem, but they don’t seem to care much. They are focused much more on the positive use cases than on the potentially negative implications. As Maio-Smith says, “We’ve gotten questions about what this does to the grieving process, and we don’t know. I’m not worried about the grieving process. You can choose to talk to your deceased relatives if you want, but you don’t have to.” This response highlights a concern many have for advanced applications of AI: development often preceeds ethical considerations. This is true with many new technological innovations, from medical applications to virtual companions. Developers figure out a super interesting use case for AI, and they often run full steam ahead without ever stepping back to consider the potential drawbacks. There is certainly something to be said for recognizing the positive potential of new technology, but if we fail to account for the potentially negative side effects, we might end up down a rabbit hole we never intended to go down.

CHOOSE YOUR WORDS WISELY

Talking to the deceased sounds like a super interesting concept, and it is. It can have positive uses of all kinds, providing people with closure and allowing people’s stories to live on past their death. However, if this technology is abused, it could be extremely harmful to natural human abilities to grieve and move forward after loss. We might begin to get so caught up in the dead that we forget how to live.

Nonetheless, StoryFile offers exciting opportunities for people to share their stories. Are you ready to record your videos and make your own holographic clone? Choose your words wisely, because they will live on for digital eternity!