Resurrect a relative for $10: a technology company in the US will allow you to communicate with a deceased loved one

Death is inevitable. Everyone experiences this grief at some point in their lives, whether it be the death of a relative, friend, or pet. Many often find solace in somehow preserving the memory of a loved one. As technology has advanced, some have found solace in using artificial intelligence to date the dead. Read more about this publication The Register.

Self-learning AI mimics the communication style of your deceased loved ones. Last year, a story about how a man downloaded a GPT-3 chatbot with text messages from his deceased fiancee to talk to her again went viral.

A software imitator helped Joshua Barbeau come to terms with the death of Jessica Pereira, a woman he met and fell in love with ten years ago.

After this story, people began to en masse apply to the project ProjectDecember — the technology that Barbo used — to spin his own AI chatbots. The creator of the software, Jason Rohrer, an independent game developer, created the code during the COVID-19 pandemic and thought that netizens would be willing to pay $5 to set up a virtual identity they would like to talk to. He didn't immediately think people would be interested in using Project December to simulate the dead until Barbeau's story went viral.

Now Rohrer has relaunched the project as a tool specifically for reuniting with the dead. Users can pay $10 to create a chatbot that mimics the behavior of a person who is no longer alive.

“I decided to create a dedicated service when I saw this desire in the community around Project December,” Rohrer said. — I wanted to create something good. I hope they get the help they've been looking for through this experience."

“It's fun to create something that's so cutting edge and crazy and sci-fi like. As a creator, this is interesting to me, ”he added.

Users are asked to complete a questionnaire about the person they want to chat with, providing name, age and hobbies, as well as specific memories and facts. Project December uses this information to make conversations more personal and chatbot responses more compelling.

People usually decide to go to Project December out of curiosity, and some keep coming back if they get something positive from the interaction. One person with experience with the software said that the results vary; he created conversations with all the imitations of dead people, from his grandmother to Steve Jobs.

“Depending on the intent, the conversations can be funny, creepy, deep, weird, spiritual, or even comparable to a healing process,” Rohrer says.

He even tried launching a chatbot to simulate a conversation with his dead future self.

“It kind of reminds me of astrology: you look at a star field in the sky to discover yourself. I did the same thing by looking at a screen of pixels,” said the creator of the software.

Is using AI to mimic the dead a growing industry

The appeal of using AI to "resurrect" the dead is mixed. Using, for example, generative adversarial networks to retouch and colorize old photographs is pretty harmless. Tools like Deep Nostalgia by MyHeritage, go even further by animating images to make people blink and smile. The feeling that dead family members or friends have seemingly momentarily come back to life can be unsettling.

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"Some people love the Deep Nostalgia feature and find it magical, while others find it creepy and don't like it," the company said in a comment. - Indeed, the results can be controversial, and it is difficult to remain indifferent to this technology. This feature is intended for nostalgic use, that is, to bring loved ones back to life."

AI can already simulate the dead using various types of data, including audio and video.

Amazon showed how its personal digital assistant Alexa can imitate the voices of dead peoplewhich caused a lot of controversy. "Alexa, can Grandma finish reading The Wizard of Oz for me?" asks a child in one of the videos shown at a conference of the Internet giant re:MARS this summer.

Rohit Prasad, Principal Scientist at Alexa AI, said the personalization of the technology allows for greater trust between humans and machines. He added that this is especially important when "many of us have lost someone we love" during the pandemic. He meant that Amazon's Alexa could pretend to be a deceased relative or friend and talk to others on demand.

The technology has been criticized as creepy and dystopian.

“Alexa voice personalization is a very welcome feature for our customers who can use this technology to create many amazing experiences. We are working to improve on the fundamental science we demonstrated at re:MARS and explore use cases that will delight our customers,” the companies said.

Los Angeles-based StoryFile made headlines when pioneering Holocaust education Marina Smith worked on a video that was shown at her funeral. Smith pre-recorded video messages, and machine learning algorithms helped select which clips were best to play when guests asked her questions, as if she could speak to them right here and now from the grave.

Algorithms bringing the dead to life may seem strange or bizarre, but it can be comforting to those who are somewhat open-minded to try these new types of services. One Project December user said he would think twice before admitting to using software to communicate with the dead as it is "a bit of a taboo".

However, he finds the whole experience "oddly therapeutic". The man said that his mother had recently been admitted to hospice and he was not sure how he would imitate talking to her after her death.

Rohrer has tested the project several times by simulating the chatbot on people in his life who have passed away, including his grandparents, aunt, and childhood piano teacher. The software creator said it gave him the opportunity to think about them and relive old memories.