What is this technology and what are its possible risks
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Illustration of artificial intelligence. (photo: ABC)
Although it seems taken from an episode of Black Mirror or some series or science fiction movie, it is already a reality that is approaching at a good pace. Currently, some applications have been developed that seek to enable people to interact with absent loved ones, all based on artificial intelligence.
The process is carried out by storing memories and information of the deceased person as computer data. Subsequently, chatbots were developed, which are an online system created to interact with users, for example, instant and automatic responses from companies’ digital customer service channels.
But, in this case, they are known as “Deadbots” or “Griefbots”, in Spanish, dueling robots, since their objective is to converse with dead people.< /p>
This development seeks not only for living people to converse with family members or friends who are no longer there, but also with celebrities and historical figures.
The process on which the creation of these systems is through the language of artificial intelligence that seeks to replicate human-like interactions. To create a similar profile, information such as images, voice notes, posts on social networks, electronic messages, written letters, among other elements, is collected.
Microsoft
This is the company that has made the most noise in matters of creating technologies to simulate communications with people who are no longer there, it patented its creation in the year 2021 and intends to include interactions in 2D and 3D , probably with the use of augmented reality glasses.
However, they have also presented difficulties during the development of their own system, since they previously experimented with abot named Tay in conversations on Twitter that ended up spreading racist messages on the social network.
HereAfter
Created by James Vlah, who faced the death of his father just as he was writing a book on Artificial Intelligence. He took advantage of the topic he was writing about and the research he had done on it to start creating an artificial intelligence system that would allow him to communicate with his father one last time. It has now become a larger project.
Eterny.me
Project created by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) based on the same principles that have been used so far, data collection corresponding to images and voice recordings of people.
This project was harshly criticized, accusing it of altering the natural processes of life itself and questioning the situation of the human being in the future.
Impacts on human life
These advances in artificial intelligence have not been spared from being the subject of ethical and philosophical discussions, since, for example, Belén Jiménez Alonso and Ignacio Brescó de Luna, in their article published in “The Conversation”, suggest that these deadbots could help people to grieve, having a psychologically positive impact, in addition to functioning as a kind of interactive memory.
However, they also say that among the possible negative consequences, it is the violation of the privacy of the person who seeks to be replicated or the fact that there is no use property.
Regarding legal discussions, France has moved a bit forward, in 2021, the ethics committee issued an opinion calling for taking into account aspects such as data consent, identity theft and psychological impact on the development of these D eadbots.