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Digital Afterlife

What is the digital afterlife? 


Losing a loved one is probably one of the hardest things to experience. But what if there is a way to enable us to talk to them, hear their voice, and even see their face long after they've passed? That's the idea behind the digital afterlife—a new industry that employs AI, chatbots, and avatars so people can still talk to digital versions of dead loved ones.


Companies are already working on ways to do this. Microsoft, for one, has created technology that is able to create chatbots based on specific individuals, even their words, tone, and virtual looks. The AI avatars are able to recreate soothing chatter, body language, and memories, so that it will feel like our loved ones still exist in some form. Our technology's purpose is to redefine the way of experiencing loss, offering a choice to the traditional finality of death.


Image credit: IEEE Spectrum
Image credit: IEEE Spectrum

Benefits of the Digital Afterlife


Proponents of the digital afterlife emphasize its potential to ease the depression caused by death. Hearing a loved one’s voice and interacting with them can ease the sense of loss and help them cope with loss. Digital memorials may also serve as therapeutic tools. The avatar that has the same memory and hobby as the loved one will cover the absence of the loved ones, so it can be less painful to say farewell to dead people. In addition to therapeutic benefits, digital avatars can also play a role in education and historical preservation. Take education, for instance: interactive holograms of Einstein can teach the Theory of Relativity in college. It will bring a great advantage to the college and students who have Einstein as their professor. 

Image credit: IEEE Spectrum
Image credit: IEEE Spectrum

The challenge of the digital afterlife


While it has benefits, the digital afterlife poses some difficult questions. The largest question is consent—would the person in question have wished to be brought back this way? Because most individuals haven't clarified their choices on digital resurrection, there's potential for crossing ethical lines. Privacy is likewise also a matter of concern. Producing an effective digital avatar includes the process of collecting and assessing enormous personal data, such as voice files, social media habits, and individual messages. These could be exploited for identity theft, unjustified usage for monetary advantage, or inflict psychological distress to deserted families if poorly handled. Furthermore, there's the question of psychological impact. Death is a natural part of life that permits individuals to come to terms with loss. If AI avatars are too realistic, would they prevent individuals from coping with the death of a loved one? Would they stall advancement? Death has been the core of human existence for millennia—perhaps one to be forever destroyed by this technology.

Image credit: The Conservation
Image credit: The Conservation

Finding the Right Balance


The virtual afterlife is a fascinating but a vastly complicated phenomenon at the intersection of technology, ethics, and sentiment. It may be comforting in one sense but it also overturns common conceptions of death, mourning, and memorialization. In the coming years, there has to be reasonable ethical principles and laws in place so that the technology is implemented in a manner respectful to the dead and the living. Instead of rushing full speed into the future where digital immortality is the norm, researchers should proceed slowly so that these developments are indeed for the ultimate good of mankind. No matter what technology can change about how humanity recalls our loved ones, it is love and memories in our hearts that bring them to life forever.

Image credit: The Economic Time
Image credit: The Economic Time

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