Rahnama’s augmented-eternity programs are still in development, but another researcher had developed a slightly different kind of working prototype. Eugenia Kuyda, co-founder of Russian AI start-up Luka, launched a program on their app last year that allows the public to engage with Roman Mazurenko, Kuyda’s best friend, who was killed in car accident in 2015. Kuyda’s aim was to use digital-afterlife technology to create a memorial in the form of a chatbot available to anyone interested in talking to Roman.
[…] Fans of the sci-fi show Black Mirror may recognize a similar situation as the premise of a 2013 episode titled “Be Right Back.” In this story, a widow uses a service to collect her dead partner’s digital footprint (texts, emails, photos, audio recordings) to reconstitute him first into a chatbot able to exchange text messages with her, and then ultimately into a realistic android. The narrative suggests that attempts to preserve our loved ones in a digital afterlife will result in painful repercussions. It also raises the question of whether a service able to turn a dead person into a chatbot would be venturing into an ethical gray area, interfering with our ability to process the reality of death. More here.