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If you're a programmer it's certainly possible you might have some pre-canned scripts to run -- perhaps telling nephew Susie she should have a great birthday an

by GuiA 15y ago

If you're a programmer it's certainly possible you might have some pre-canned scripts to run -- perhaps telling nephew Susie she should have a great birthday and life once she turns 18. Maybe you have something to detect jokes your Uncle tells and add in a "lol" in a comment. Aside from being weird, is that socially acceptable? Should relatives help you do this? This is the paragraph of the article that I found the most interesting from a sociological point of view (the rest has been covered many times in the past, and as other commenters have pointed out there are several services who deal with it). I wrote a bit more about it a while ago, as I think that this will become something potentially very real in the next few decades: http://gardaud.posterous.com/digital-ghosts http://gardaud.posterous.com/digital-ghosts

Figs 15y ago
I remember reading about something like this in a few science fiction novels by Jack McDevitt (the "Alex Benedict" series) -- basically people had left behind AI versions of themselves that some of the protagonists interviewed to try to piece together interstellar archaeological mysteries.
jchampagne 15y ago
I agree that this is the most interesting part of the article, sociologically. My father was a tech guy who passed away over ten years ago, I believe that if you had the power to do so it would be an invaluable gift to your loved ones to leave them little messages every so often… (as long as your relationship was healthy!) But unlike the attached article implies, psychologists shouldn’t be concerned as I don’t think most people will ever feel like we are truly “communicating” with our deceased loved ones as communication is always a two-way streak. A robot giving standard-human like answers (or a relative enabling that) isn’t really your loved one communicating unless that loved one somehow took the time to sit there and guess what you might answer in different scenarios. As much as I’d love periodic messages and jokes sent from my dead father to appear every once and a while (and would look forward to and treasure them) I could never feel compelled to reply back to him, or desire a robotic answer, and once you cross that line then I think it falls into “socially unacceptable”.
- chimeracoder 15y ago
  What about when we get to the point where we have an AI capable of simulating, if imperfectly, an individual's response to a given question? If you think that this is farfetched, it's not - it's basically like http://iwl.me http://iwl.me , but in reverse. The catch is that you need a lot of easily classified textual data about the person. But in the Twitter age, we do have that kind of information - or soon will. Gracious Eloise[1] is a really cool idea, though it's going to create a nightmarish situation for forensics experts. Imagine if you combined the two - you could simulate what a person might say, and you could simulate their actual handwriting for it. [1] http://www.graciouseloise.com/ http://www.graciouseloise.com/
tripzilch 15y ago
Absolutely. That bit was very inspiring and I'm going to ponder a bit on how to use it for maximum fun, weird and most importantly, good.

by GuiA 15y ago

Figs 15y ago

I remember reading about something like this in a few science fiction novels by Jack McDevitt (the "Alex Benedict" series) -- basically people had left behind AI versions of themselves that some of the protagonists interviewed to try to piece together interstellar archaeological mysteries.

jchampagne 15y ago

I agree that this is the most interesting part of the article, sociologically. My father was a tech guy who passed away over ten years ago, I believe that if you had the power to do so it would be an invaluable gift to your loved ones to leave them little messages every so often… (as long as your relationship was healthy!) But unlike the attached article implies, psychologists shouldn’t be concerned as I don’t think most people will ever feel like we are truly “communicating” with our deceased loved ones as communication is always a two-way streak. A robot giving standard-human like answers (or a relative enabling that) isn’t really your loved one communicating unless that loved one somehow took the time to sit there and guess what you might answer in different scenarios. As much as I’d love periodic messages and jokes sent from my dead father to appear every once and a while (and would look forward to and treasure them) I could never feel compelled to reply back to him, or desire a robotic answer, and once you cross that line then I think it falls into “socially unacceptable”.

chimeracoder 15y ago
What about when we get to the point where we have an AI capable of simulating, if imperfectly, an individual's response to a given question? If you think that this is farfetched, it's not - it's basically like http://iwl.me http://iwl.me , but in reverse. The catch is that you need a lot of easily classified textual data about the person. But in the Twitter age, we do have that kind of information - or soon will. Gracious Eloise[1] is a really cool idea, though it's going to create a nightmarish situation for forensics experts. Imagine if you combined the two - you could simulate what a person might say, and you could simulate their actual handwriting for it. [1] http://www.graciouseloise.com/ http://www.graciouseloise.com/

tripzilch 15y ago

Absolutely. That bit was very inspiring and I'm going to ponder a bit on how to use it for maximum fun, weird and most importantly, good.