> The company demoed the feature at its annual MARS conference, showing a video in which a child asks Alexa to read a bedtime story in the voice of his dead gra

> The company demoed the feature at its annual MARS conference, showing a video in which a child asks Alexa to read a bedtime story in the voice of his dead grandmother. > “As you saw in this experience, instead of Alexa’s voice reading the book, it’s the kid’s grandma’s voice,” said Rohit Prasad, Amazon’s head scientist for Alexa AI. Prasad introduced the clip by saying that adding “human attributes” to AI systems was increasingly important “in these times of the ongoing pandemic, when so many of us have lost someone we love.” > “While AI can’t eliminate that pain of loss, it can definitely make their memories last,” said Prasad. You can watch the demo itself below: Sometimes I wonder who is approving these presentations. Like who saw the brief for this and said "yep, that sounds like a good idea!". I fully expected this article to be clickbait and/or be misrepresenting the facts but no, instead it's coming awfully close to Black Mirror's "Be Right Back" episode. My grandma actually recorded herself reading books to me as a child and I cherried those cassette tapes and listened to them over and over again. To the point that in early elementary school I "read" a book for "show and tell" that surprised my teachers (reading at that level, for my age). Turns out I had just memorized it (a story I've seen repeated online more than once). Those recordings are special, this feels gross. Alexa is not making their memories last, it's a lie, it's fake, it's not real, and it borders on delusional.