Originally posted By Marc Tavares on January 16, 2019
When we send our friends a text, post to Instagram, or write a review on Yelp, we’re sharing a piece of who we are through the data that’s created. What if this data could be used to create an online version of ourselves that lives on after we’re dead? Ryerson University based professor and researcher Hossein Rahnama is working on an AI application called Augmented Eternity that processes data from several sources such as text messages and social media using machine learning to create this online version of a person.
One of the ways the technology has been represented is as a chatbot that emulates a deceased loved one. The concept isn’t that farfetched considering the ways mobile technology is used to grieve the loss of loved ones in ways such as writing on a deceased person’s Facebook wall, spending time looking at their Instagram photos, or reading the the messages they’ve sent. It’s not abnormal for someone to hang onto the mobile device of the person they’ve lost since a part of that person lives on through their device and the data it contains.
This kind of artificial intelligence has application beyond the chatbot example, but the phenomenon of mourning and grieving digitally is seemingly becoming, if it hasn’t already become, a cultural norm.
Here’s a great video of Dr. Rahnama introducing his concepts of digital identities and augmented eternity:
For information on Dr. Rahnama’s project: https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/augmented-eternity/overview/
Resources, Related Articles, and Interesting Reads:
Digital immortality: How your life’s data means a version of you could live forever. (Soft paywall)
New Technology is forcing us to confront the ethics of bringing people back from the dead
Morbid and intriguing! As of 2015, social media platforms have enabled legacy modes that allow profiles to live forever, even after the individual it’s tied to has passed. Similar to a will IRL (in real life), you can designate an emergency contact that will manage your profile based on your preferences. Examples including approving friend requests, updating profile photos and publishing memorial posts. While it’s reassuring to have options, it begs the question: what happens to our digital avatars/profiles when we die?
There’s even a 2019 study by Öhman and Watson (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2053951719842540), that suggests that Facebook will be a digital graveyard within the century. Based on their analysis of profiles, the researchers estimate that “a minimum of 1.4 billion users will pass away before 2100, if Facebook ceases to attract new users as of 2018”. Combined with the legacy options, digital immortality could easily be a reality.
Other interesting resources:
We’re all going to die — what happens to our Facebook accounts? (The Verge: Why’d You Push that Button? / Podcast)
https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/12/18661646/online-death-planning-digital-will-facebook-instagram-accounts-whyd-you-push-that-button
From Facebook To A Virtual You: Planning Your Digital Afterlife (NPR)
https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/02/12/385753136/from-facebook-to-a-virtual-you-planning-your-digital-afterlife