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They said that dead men tell no tales, but that idiom soon may change.
In another moment of freaky sci-fi becoming reality, Microsoft received a patent for a new digital process of immortalizing the dead.
This system takes someone’s social data they left behind (including videos, text, and electronic messages), analyzes it, and renders it into that person’s digital likeness.
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Is it creepy? Totally. Is it also an effective way of eulogizing somebody in a scary-accurate sort of way? Absolutely.
The program is even able to take stored voice messages and photos of the deceased to create a virtual model who looks, moves, and talks like our lost loved ones.
It’s a way of bringing back those who we miss most, but it also might be an example of science going too far.
A digital likeness could bring closure. It could also reopen old wounds that had almost healed.
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In either case, the idea of resurrecting the dead via AI isn’t unheard of. A popular Black Mirror episode “Be Right Back” revived the protagonist’s recently deceased boyfriend via text message – though the results were a little more hostile than what the teams at Microsoft are hoping for.
Moreover, technology has brought celebrities back from the dead countless times in the past decade. Icons like Prince, Michael Jackson, Carrie Fisher, and even Robert Kardashian have made their way through cyberspace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mumSFH5zqnk&ab_channel=BTMAfrika
Microsoft’s new patent takes digital necromancy to the next level. With actual user data, programs would have enough information to actually replicate someone’s personality.
Almost all of our thoughts, dreams, opinions, and ambitions live on the internet now, anyway. Soon, reuniting with our loved ones might just be a few clicks away.
What’s your take on Microsoft’s ghostly chatbot?
Share your thoughts with us in the comments!
