6 ms·

Wow, impressive results! Already a few examples in the comments of what bad actors could do this tech. I wanted to share an example of something good. I lost m

Wow, impressive results! Already a few examples in the comments of what bad actors could do this tech. I wanted to share an example of something good. I lost my dad about 6 years ago after a Stage 4 cancer diagnosis and a 3 month rapid diagnosis. I have some, but not a lot of video content of him from over the years. My mom still misses him terribly so for her 60th birthday I tried to splice together an audio message and greeting from her saying what I thought he would have said. The work was rough and nowhere near what this Google project could produce. She listens to that poor facsimile every year for her birthday. It's therapeutic for her. With some limits for her mental health of course, I'm sure she would love to hear my dad again with this level of fidelity. And so would I.

cayblood 7y ago
Beautiful. Thanks for sharing. It's good to point out the positive potential uses as well as the negative.
Aaronstotle 7y ago
Sorry for your loss, thank you for providing an optimistic example.
mottiden 7y ago
I'm deeply sorry for your loss. Thanks for sharing your story.
dejj 7y ago
Seems like, > This is just >> All can be returned, all can be taken away > with extra steps.
ada1981 7y ago
When I interviewed Ray Kurzweil we talked about the obvious-in-hindsight insight that his life’s work was essentially trying to build an AI to bring his father back to life.
- azinman2 7y ago
  Except no matter how good it is, it will only reinforce that it’s not real and that he’s gone. Perhaps that’s the therapy he needs to move on? Note: this is different from listening to recordings from the actual person. Having loved ones die is one of life’s universal terrible qualities.
  - bsanr2 7y ago
    I think a lot of people's passions are driven by a hole in their heart, that they hope their work will help fill somehow. I suspect that no small amount of the enthusiasm for XR is due to a deep and abiding desire to be someone else, somewhere else, among the people developing or early-adopting for it. Of course, it doesn't have to be so high-tech; much non-profit or social work is prompted personal experience with the presence, or lack thereof, of the service being rendered. In the end, I don't know if any of that works. But what's being subscribed doesn't seem too far outside the norm. Deprivation often leads to desperation for even a taste, however imperfect it may be.
  - AbbasHaiderAli 7y ago
    I think it would be cathartic to talk to someone you trusted but who is now gone. There's been decision points over the last few years where I would love to have just said my thoughts out loud to my dad and just have him nod and ask a couple of open ended questions so I could get it out. No specific guidance needed, just his particular style of listening. Clearly losing someone and being able to deal with it is an important life skill but just as we build technology powered aids for other situations, I don't think this would be any different
    - pmoriarty 7y ago
      "I think it would be cathartic to talk to someone you trusted but who is now gone." It would be cathartic, but in this case you wouldn't be talking to them but to a computer, who (at best) is pretending to be them. I think it's kind of creepy, when you really think about it, and it reminds me of the aversion the creator of Eliza had to his creation when he found out that people were spilling their guts out to it and treating it as a real person. Which isn't to say that it can't be helpful to talk to something that's not a real person (and especially not a formerly living person you once knew) can't be healing. But if people get confused by these machines in to thinking the machines are actually people close to them that died and are now living again, that will make them vulnerable to some really serious manipulation and delusion.
drbawb 7y ago
When I was doing a computer repair: I remember a woman coming in with a digital answering machine; the kind that stored its recordings in volatile flash. During a thunderstorm the night prior the machine lost power, and subsequently lost all the stored recordings. As it happens some of those lost recordings included messages from the woman's late mother. That moment has stuck with me for many, many years. The heartbreak on her face, combined with my own frustration of knowing that no amount of luck (or skill) will ever be able to flip the bits of that flash chip back to a permutation which contains samples of her loved one's voice. Fast forward to the present, my own grandmother passed away shortly after the start of 2019. I was able to salvage some of the many voicemails she had left me over the years, despite having had probably five or six cellphones during that period. Why? I used Google Voice, which is part of their Google Takeout data exfiltration program. I was able to download all those voicemails as MP3s, neatly categorized by caller. My grandma was very terse, so most of them are exactly the same: "Robert, can you please call me?", but in spite of that each one is unique and precious to me. A lot of developers think about getting data into their platform, but it seems to me that not as many think about users getting their data, sometimes precious & irreplaceable, back out of the platform.
- therealfitz 7y ago
  Thanks so much for sharing this story--this never even occurred to us when we created Google Takeout back in the day! -Fitz
- airstrike 7y ago
  My pet project I will likely never have the resources to work on would be AI-generated 3D virtual environments based on old photos / videos that you could navigate in VR and relive long lost memories I'd pay a good amount of money to be able to relive certain experiences from my childhood with that level of immersion
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
pmoriarty 7y ago
Philip K Dick wrote about people going to commune with artificial personality constructs of their deceased loved ones. Unfortunately, it's been a long time since I read it, so I don't remember which book it was in. Maybe someone who's read him more recently can remember. Update: Apparently, lots of other people wrote about this too, but PKD wrote about this before any of the ones mentioned so far, as he wrote about this in the 1950's or 60's. I'm not sure if he was the absolute first, however. So if anyone knows of any earlier references, it would be interesting to learn about them.
- blowski 7y ago
  There was also a Black Mirror episode.
  - ben_w 7y ago
    It’s also present in the Revelation Space series, Neuromancer, Red Dwarf, and Star Trek.
- ErikAugust 7y ago
  Ubik? Though that is not about artificial personality constructs, it's about communicating with loved ones in half-dead states.
  - iainmerrick 7y ago
    This idea crops up in a few of his novels and stories, but I think it’s most fleshed-out in Ubik, yeah.
    - xkcd-sucks 7y ago
      Under the hood they are all about religious Gnosticism and the physical universe as a false facade to the "true" universe. VALIS is a pretty good explication as well as a really good book; if you are into mental illness+theology, only then is his Exegesis a good read
daenz 7y ago
I'm imagining Siri with the voice of your partner.
- martin-adams 7y ago
  Yeah, you probably don't want to mixing up some habits of how you talk to a digital assistant and the person you love.
  - daenz 7y ago
    My partner and I frequently ask each other things, to which the response is "I bet you could google that." Seems fitting :)
- AbbasHaiderAli 7y ago
  Either I would wind up being extra nice to a digital assistant or being curt with my partner :)
mcdoh 7y ago
It could also be used for recreating voices for people that have lost theirs, like Roger Ebert. I think he benefited by having so much of his voice already recorded, this would make it much easier for regular people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMyxgSLESz8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMyxgSLESz8
- AbbasHaiderAli 7y ago
  Great use case!
nradov 7y ago
That was part of the original idea behind the Infibond start-up in Israel. Not clear how real it ever was. https://sifted.eu/articles/infibond-investigation-israeli-startup/ https://sifted.eu/articles/infibond-investigation-israeli-st...
etskinner 7y ago
Would be interesting to have a community where people looking to be comforted by their loved one's voice would post whatever snippet of recording they have, then others would listen and see if they know someone who has a similar voice and have them record a message.
ehsankia 7y ago
This podcast explores how similar tech is used to give voice back to people who have lost it due to voice impairment. Basically allowing all the people using machines that sound like the classic Hawking computer voice to have their own voice instead. https://www.npr.org/2019/07/15/741827437/finding-your-voice-how-the-way-we-sound-shapes-our-identities https://www.npr.org/2019/07/15/741827437/finding-your-voice-...
xfkechyk 7y ago
Reminds me of the LifeAfter podcast: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/panoply/the-message https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/panoply/the-message

cayblood 7y ago

Beautiful. Thanks for sharing. It's good to point out the positive potential uses as well as the negative.

Aaronstotle 7y ago

Sorry for your loss, thank you for providing an optimistic example.

mottiden 7y ago

I'm deeply sorry for your loss. Thanks for sharing your story.

dejj 7y ago

Seems like, > This is just >> All can be returned, all can be taken away > with extra steps.

ada1981 7y ago

When I interviewed Ray Kurzweil we talked about the obvious-in-hindsight insight that his life’s work was essentially trying to build an AI to bring his father back to life.

azinman2 7y ago
Except no matter how good it is, it will only reinforce that it’s not real and that he’s gone. Perhaps that’s the therapy he needs to move on? Note: this is different from listening to recordings from the actual person. Having loved ones die is one of life’s universal terrible qualities.
- bsanr2 7y ago
  I think a lot of people's passions are driven by a hole in their heart, that they hope their work will help fill somehow. I suspect that no small amount of the enthusiasm for XR is due to a deep and abiding desire to be someone else, somewhere else, among the people developing or early-adopting for it. Of course, it doesn't have to be so high-tech; much non-profit or social work is prompted personal experience with the presence, or lack thereof, of the service being rendered. In the end, I don't know if any of that works. But what's being subscribed doesn't seem too far outside the norm. Deprivation often leads to desperation for even a taste, however imperfect it may be.
- AbbasHaiderAli 7y ago
  I think it would be cathartic to talk to someone you trusted but who is now gone. There's been decision points over the last few years where I would love to have just said my thoughts out loud to my dad and just have him nod and ask a couple of open ended questions so I could get it out. No specific guidance needed, just his particular style of listening. Clearly losing someone and being able to deal with it is an important life skill but just as we build technology powered aids for other situations, I don't think this would be any different
  - pmoriarty 7y ago
    "I think it would be cathartic to talk to someone you trusted but who is now gone." It would be cathartic, but in this case you wouldn't be talking to them but to a computer, who (at best) is pretending to be them. I think it's kind of creepy, when you really think about it, and it reminds me of the aversion the creator of Eliza had to his creation when he found out that people were spilling their guts out to it and treating it as a real person. Which isn't to say that it can't be helpful to talk to something that's not a real person (and especially not a formerly living person you once knew) can't be healing. But if people get confused by these machines in to thinking the machines are actually people close to them that died and are now living again, that will make them vulnerable to some really serious manipulation and delusion.

drbawb 7y ago

When I was doing a computer repair: I remember a woman coming in with a digital answering machine; the kind that stored its recordings in volatile flash. During a thunderstorm the night prior the machine lost power, and subsequently lost all the stored recordings. As it happens some of those lost recordings included messages from the woman's late mother. That moment has stuck with me for many, many years. The heartbreak on her face, combined with my own frustration of knowing that no amount of luck (or skill) will ever be able to flip the bits of that flash chip back to a permutation which contains samples of her loved one's voice. Fast forward to the present, my own grandmother passed away shortly after the start of 2019. I was able to salvage some of the many voicemails she had left me over the years, despite having had probably five or six cellphones during that period. Why? I used Google Voice, which is part of their Google Takeout data exfiltration program. I was able to download all those voicemails as MP3s, neatly categorized by caller. My grandma was very terse, so most of them are exactly the same: "Robert, can you please call me?", but in spite of that each one is unique and precious to me. A lot of developers think about getting data into their platform, but it seems to me that not as many think about users getting their data, sometimes precious & irreplaceable, back out of the platform.

therealfitz 7y ago
Thanks so much for sharing this story--this never even occurred to us when we created Google Takeout back in the day! -Fitz
airstrike 7y ago
My pet project I will likely never have the resources to work on would be AI-generated 3D virtual environments based on old photos / videos that you could navigate in VR and relive long lost memories I'd pay a good amount of money to be able to relive certain experiences from my childhood with that level of immersion
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

pmoriarty 7y ago

Philip K Dick wrote about people going to commune with artificial personality constructs of their deceased loved ones. Unfortunately, it's been a long time since I read it, so I don't remember which book it was in. Maybe someone who's read him more recently can remember. Update: Apparently, lots of other people wrote about this too, but PKD wrote about this before any of the ones mentioned so far, as he wrote about this in the 1950's or 60's. I'm not sure if he was the absolute first, however. So if anyone knows of any earlier references, it would be interesting to learn about them.

blowski 7y ago
There was also a Black Mirror episode.
- ben_w 7y ago
  It’s also present in the Revelation Space series, Neuromancer, Red Dwarf, and Star Trek.
ErikAugust 7y ago
Ubik? Though that is not about artificial personality constructs, it's about communicating with loved ones in half-dead states.
- iainmerrick 7y ago
  This idea crops up in a few of his novels and stories, but I think it’s most fleshed-out in Ubik, yeah.
  - xkcd-sucks 7y ago
    Under the hood they are all about religious Gnosticism and the physical universe as a false facade to the "true" universe. VALIS is a pretty good explication as well as a really good book; if you are into mental illness+theology, only then is his Exegesis a good read

daenz 7y ago

I'm imagining Siri with the voice of your partner.

martin-adams 7y ago
Yeah, you probably don't want to mixing up some habits of how you talk to a digital assistant and the person you love.
- daenz 7y ago
  My partner and I frequently ask each other things, to which the response is "I bet you could google that." Seems fitting :)
AbbasHaiderAli 7y ago
Either I would wind up being extra nice to a digital assistant or being curt with my partner :)

mcdoh 7y ago

It could also be used for recreating voices for people that have lost theirs, like Roger Ebert. I think he benefited by having so much of his voice already recorded, this would make it much easier for regular people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMyxgSLESz8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMyxgSLESz8

AbbasHaiderAli 7y ago
Great use case!

nradov 7y ago

That was part of the original idea behind the Infibond start-up in Israel. Not clear how real it ever was. https://sifted.eu/articles/infibond-investigation-israeli-startup/ https://sifted.eu/articles/infibond-investigation-israeli-st...

etskinner 7y ago

Would be interesting to have a community where people looking to be comforted by their loved one's voice would post whatever snippet of recording they have, then others would listen and see if they know someone who has a similar voice and have them record a message.

ehsankia 7y ago

This podcast explores how similar tech is used to give voice back to people who have lost it due to voice impairment. Basically allowing all the people using machines that sound like the classic Hawking computer voice to have their own voice instead. https://www.npr.org/2019/07/15/741827437/finding-your-voice-how-the-way-we-sound-shapes-our-identities https://www.npr.org/2019/07/15/741827437/finding-your-voice-...

xfkechyk 7y ago

Reminds me of the LifeAfter podcast: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/panoply/the-message https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/panoply/the-message