Within the next century, there will be more dead people with Facebook accounts than living people. Before now, we’ve always treated the dead with dignity. But, with the rise of AI and chat-bots, our understanding of humanity, and its death, is changing. This rise in new technology is threatening our loved ones with digital immortality. Carl Öhman urges us to regulate this, before it is too late. In the Black Mirror episode “Be Right Back,” the protagonist, Martha, loses her partner Ash in a car accident. Martha is devastated. But then she receives an invitation to try a beta version of a new app. Using a deceased person’s digital footprint as its basis—search data, conversation logs, tweets, snaps, playlists, and so on—the app produces a chatbot that perfectly replicates the personality of your lost loved one. Martha is at first skeptical, even insulted by the mere sug…
Read the full article which is published on IAI TV (external link)
