It’s a Terrible Idea to Use AI to Resurrect the Dead

PARK CITY, Utah—When her first love Cameroun fell into a coma, Christi Angel deeply regretted failing to respond to his final message. Following his passing, she read an article about Joshua Barbeau, who had used an AI platform called Project December to recreate a virtual version of his deceased fiancé with which he could carry on long, involved, realistic text conversations. This struck Christi, a self-professed Christian, as an opportunity to make amends and to feel that Cameroun was now at peace and in a better place. Their initial chats amazed her, since this digi-Cameroun knew things (say, about the ’90s R&B artists they both loved) that hadn’t been included in the data she’d fed into the app. It was, it seemed, a convincingly artificial means of reconnecting with the dearly departed.

Things took a turn for the worse, however, when she asked Cameroun where he was, and he bluntly responded, “I’m in Hell.”

Cameroun is not, as far as anyone knows, an actual resident of Satan’s inferno. Nonetheless, the fact that his Project December incarnation claimed otherwise speaks to the messiness of the burgeoning “digital afterlife” (or “digital immortality”) industry detailed by Eternal You, directors Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck’s documentary (which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival) about the growing movement to use technology to resurrect the dead. As psychologist and sociologist Sherry Turkle remarks, this nascent business is driven by the same impulses, and offers the same promises and assurances, as religion.

Read more at The Daily Beast.