An AI company may have gone too far this time. Silicon Intelligence has now created an AI capable of “resurrecting” your dead loved ones. At least, that’s what the company claims. The truth is that the company can create an AI-powered avatar of your loved one, allowing you to chat with them like you would with any other AI chatbot.
If that sounds exceptionally dystopian, then yeah, you’re not alone in thinking that. However, it seems that some folks are really on board with the idea. The idea of cloning people who have died isn’t new. However, it’s mostly stayed within the realm of sci-fi, thankfully. With ChatGPT and other AI supporting more multimodal options, though, some have decided to pull this sci-fi trope into the real world.
AI capable of resurrecting dead loved ones still sounds a bit too far, though, at least for me. However, I’m not going to fault anyone for wanting another chance to talk to their loved ones—even if it isn’t really their loved ones. Goodness knows we’ve been looking for ways to speak to the dead for centuries before now. This just seems like another evolutionary step in the process.
One such user told NPR that he doesn’t view the digital avatar of his mother as being alive or dead because that doesn’t matter. That particular user simply sees it as a way to talk to his mother again despite her being gone.
The rise of these AI simulations has definitely drawn some ire from others, though. Especially from those in the general industry who are afraid of how AI might overthrow humanity. But there is one thing that AI cannot replicate. Sure, there might be AI capable of resurrecting dead loved ones, but it can’t capture their thoughts and their own experiences of events.
As such, the avatars you talk to will always be shells of the people they are imitating.
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