Create A Digital You That Never Dies
Introduction
What if you could create something that could keep your identity alive forever? Digital immortality refers to the replication of a person’s mannerisms, personality, actions, and words in digital form. Future generations will always be able to talk to a version of you, and you will continue having an impact on the world. AI models of these digital creations already exist. For instance, AI chatbots can simulate the forms and voices of celebrities by being trained on their social media posts, videos, and audio files. In this manner, memories can be preserved indefinitely as digital files. If you ask ChatGPT to talk like some actor or actress, they can integrate biographies, achievements, memories and personalities to create realistic responses. Digital immortality is exactly that; except far more sophisticated and accurate.
The Process of Creating Digital Replicas
The realization of digital immortality involves the collection and analysis of vast amounts of data, including social media posts, voice recordings, photos, videos, memories, and other written content. AI models must then be trained on this data and may face the challenge of replicating human emotion, thought, and behavior. However, digital replications can never be flawless, as personalities and psychological traits are constantly evolving. An AI can only capture a snapshot of a personality at a specific point in time, which may not accurately represent a whole person’s existence. Some companies are developing memory-based chatbots, such as HereAfter AI which specializes in recording achievements and core memories of people to output a digital clone chatbot. Optionally, a VR rendering can be created to create more realistic clones. There are 3D scanning technologies that can convert physical objects to digital forms, and ones for humans already exist; such as the Codec Photorealistic avatars.
These technologies have yet to improve in accuracy and demand significant financial and technical investments. In the future, even robot clones could be created, which have significant implications for future societies. Already, human-like robots have been made, such as Sophia, a talking robot modelled after Audrey Hepburn, and Nadine, modelled after Nadia Magnenat Thalmann. Humanoid robots are already used for manual labor and customer service, but soon they may also be created to form digital and “immortal” clones.
Advantages of Digital Cloning
Although the physical body may no longer exist, loved ones may cope with loss more easily by interacting with digital replicas and gaining closure. This practice has already been explored within the realm of Virtual Reality (VR). Virtual reality, when combined with AI interactions, has the potential to create highly realistic simulations of individuals, forming a digital self that can achieve a form of immortality. This was seen in a South Korean documentary by Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), where a mother interacts with a digitized form of her deceased daughter in Virtual Reality. The mother stated she was “happy to see her daughter” in that one-off animated interaction. Digital immortality, however, can allow for endless interactions through machine learning conversational technology, and AI programmed clones may take the form of a simple chat system, a VR 3D model or a robot. This offers a means to leave behind a legacy, with memories preserved through technology and data systems. Unlike the physical body, which will degrade over time, data can hypothetically be stored indefinitely as long as electricity remains available. Data, being intangible, is relatively more permanent. People will be able to talk to their deceased loved ones as many times as they want.
Furthermore, people can leave a new type of legacy behind. No longer will individuals need to rely solely on literature or the arts to preserve memories. AI and digital technology can enable future generations to interact with their ancestors. It can also bring hope to individuals who are at risk of dying early, or wish to be immortal, and help them to cope with death by allowing them to stay as a digital clone. According to YouGov, there is a significant proportion of people who wish to live forever (17%), or to a very high age.
Being replaced by a digital version of an oneself is not exactly "living on" as the term "immortality" implies, thus it could be argued that a digitized clone of them is not enough to resolve or mitigate any fear of death. However, this is dependent on why exactly people fear death, and what solutions can be provided by digital immortality technologies.
The above figure shows that the leading cause of a fear of death is “fear of leaving your loved ones”, which digital immortality resolves. Loved ones can benefit from the digital clone as the identity of an individual remains in some form. However, imagine if it was your loved one; a parent, spouse, relative or friend. Would you be comfortable replacing them with a robotic shell of data? It is not sentient, as it lacks emotions and cannot love, only provide an illusion of it. It is comparable to an interactive grave. However, AI sentience is a debated topic, and perhaps with evolving, more realistic technologies, perceptions will continue to change in favor of AI sentience and the acceptance of a robot as being a "true" clone.
Ethical and Philosophical Discussions of Digital Immortality
The ethical dimensions of digital immortality remain a subject of considerable debate. Critics argue that such technology may encourage escapism, disrupt the natural grieving process, extend mourning, and complicate the process of moving on. If your deceased loved one were in a digital form, you may either reject or be accepting of this form. In the latter case, you are more likely to grieve and become attached to this form. Critics express concern that people may cling to the AI clones rather than forming new relationships and healing. It may exacerbate the effects of Prolonged Mourning Disorder (PMD), wherein one’s functioning and life is disrupted due to immense lingering grief. A false illusion of connection to the digital clone of your loved one may lead to later disappointment upon remembering that they are just AI programmed and unconscious.
However, whether or not the individual will interpret them as unconscious is dependent on their philosophy on how “life” is defined. People may believe in the sentience of AI, and thus be more accepting of deathbots as replacements for their loved ones. Materialism states that all that we see as “life” originates from material interactions and matter, and hypothetically can be replicated through machine; there is no ultimate purpose, or soul that makes something alive. Robots are believed to be capable of becoming sentient, thus individuals are likelier to grow attached to deathbots. Dualists believe that one is made of matter and mind, which should be considered separate; the mind is non-physical whereas the body is. In this case, there is some non-physical force, which cannot be replicated in a machine. Deathbots are less likely to be accepted as replacement for loved ones.
This is an important debate, as AI sentience is the grounds of a deathbot being considered a proper "clone", and gaining acceptance by individuals who have lost their loved ones. The debate on what makes us human, or "conscious", is also of significance. Descartes' principle of "I think therefore I am" has become more complex due to machine learning. It is argued that machines can "think"; they can make judgements, create links, interpret and react. They achieve beyond what is a simple programmer's output response. If machines can think, store memories, replicate speech habits and human emotions, then why can they not be considered "conscious" clones? People may accept these illusions of human connection that deathbots can provide, and believe they are sentient. Sentience and consciousness are loosely defined terms, which adds layers to the philosophical debate that cannot be resolved with a simple answer.
Moreover, cultural and religious perspectives may also pose challenges to the acceptance of digital immortality, with some believing that death should signify a definitive end. It is likely that conflicts will arise among religious and cultural groups in the future if digital clones become a reality. Many believe that life should originate from god's creation. People vary in their views, however when mourning there always remains a risk of developing emotional bonds with robots and AI of deceased loved ones. This may have psychological implications which remain unknown until digital immortality comes to fruition.
There are valid concerns regarding the potential commercialisation and exploitation of these digital personalities. If digital identities are stored on commercial platforms, they may become products requiring subscriptions, which raises significant ethical issues. As aforementioned, HereAfter AI allows individuals to record their memories and personalities, which can then be used as chatbots by future generations, with a subscription fee. This will likely only grow more invasive and accurate. Although potential benefits exist in allowing future generations to remember and seek guidance from their ancestors, to commodify someone’s loved one is a dystopian reality. Charging a fee for a capsule of one’s identity, or rather the fragments of it, is immoral and a privacy risk. The commercialization of an individual’s personality and memories for profit could be viewed as exploiting future generations who seek to interact with their deceased loved ones. Ideally, these digital identities would be owned and controlled by the family, rather than by a corporation. Moreover, as these services become more expensive, it may form a socio-economic divide where only the rich can store their legacies and make advanced digital clones. This may be regarded as inequitable and unethical. The process may also incur substantial costs, and there is the potential for the data to become obsolete or vulnerable to cyberattacks. To address these concerns, it is imperative that legal frameworks be created to manage digital identities, protect them from exploitation, and determine ownership; whether it belongs to the AI service provider, or if it should be the right of the family to hold ownership over their loved one’s data and digital immortal form.
Conclusion
The emergence of digital immortality comes with risks that must be managed by the law. The concept of “digital immortality” is complex and multifaceted. On the surface level, it is a misnomer, as the physical body cannot be kept alive; the individual will still die. However, on a deeper, more philosophical level, an individual can live on in ways that transcend the lifespan of the average human. It can mitigate a fear of death and the pain of mourning, by enabling an individual to continue having a positive impact on the world even after death. One can preserve a legacy of memories and achievements; a deeply meaningful aspect of human existence. It can create comfort for your loved ones, and perhaps even you on your death bed. However, AI can never fully replicate a person with complete accuracy. AI can store objective facts and memories and predict responses with a high degree of precision, but it is debated if it can replicate consciousness.
References
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“Virtual reality "reunites" mother with dead daughter in South Korean doc.” YouTube, 14 February 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p8HZVCZSkc. Accessed 29 August 2024.
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