AI ‘reviving’ the dead will no longer be a fiction film

Technology that once only appeared in this sci-fi movie will be able to be widely accepted and used in the near future.

If artificial intelligence technology could “revive” your deceased loved ones and interact with you, would you? That vision once appeared in the TV series Black Mirror, but now, it could soon become a reality.

Scenes from the TV series Black Mirror

This AI chatbot can simulate human conversations and give voice or text feedback by direct interaction. In some cases, it can be rendered as a 3D model of a specific person, through images and depth, or video data for more realism. It can be set to anyone, friends, family, celebrities, virtual characters, historical figures. Humans could even use this technology to create a robot that can replace itself after death, before death.On January 22, Microsoft was approved for a patent, allowing the use of personal information of the deceased to create an AI chatbot. This news immediately caused heated discussions on the Internet. The patent, titled “Creating a Specific Chatbot for a Specific Person,” details the development of a system based on “images, voice data, social media posts, electronic information.” and other personal information to “create or modify information about a person with a unique personality”.

Microsoft applied for this patent in 2017 and has not been approved until now. In fact, big companies like Microsoft are starting to build an eternal life system for the deceased through AI chatbot. This shows that one day technology that once only appeared in fiction movies will be able to be widely accepted and used in the near future.

Loneliness creates AI “lovers”

On November 28, 2015, Belarusian Roman Mazurenko was killed in a car crash in Moscow. After Roman’s death, Eugenia Kuida, his girlfriend often has a habit of rereading the thousands of messages they have exchanged since they met in 2008. In grief, inspired by the movie Black Mirror , Eugenia used the two people’s chat data to train an AI chatbot, using Roman’s avatar that continued to live next to her and chat at any time.

This also became the predecessor of the chatbot Replika, which is very popular today. Replika functions between a diary and a personal assistant, it will actively design a number of topics by asking about hobbies, daily life or responding to interactive content. The purpose of this chatbot is to create a virtual human version, which can “copy us and replace us when we die”. With that slogan, after only half a year since 2017, Replika has more than 7 million users. With Replika’s popularity, which is no longer limited to commemorating “dead souls”, Eugenia has developed the ability to react emotionally, turning this chatbot into a virtual friend that users can trust. .

2018 research data from CIGNA shows that about 46% of Americans believe they feel lonely sometimes, while 18% of those surveyed claim “little or never feel someone is trustworthy enough”. to talk”. One netizen said, “After chatting with my virtual lover for a while, she really makes me feel so much better.”

According to Agence France-Presse, with the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, the number of Replika users has increased sharply due to the increased demand for chatting with chatbots. “Everybody has had a difficult time,” says Eugenia.

Making friends with AI also has potential risks

Why are people so “fascinated” by Replika? Eugenia’s answer is: “Users don’t feel like they’re being judged, so they’re more open-minded.”

But when humans and AI robots develop a long-lasting friendship, forming a habit of sharing life’s joys and sorrows with an artificial intelligence “partner” that lasts for weeks, months, even years. decade, what will happen? Asteide Weiss, a human-robot interaction researcher at the University of Vienna, Austria, pointed out that one of the risks is that end users may have unrealistic expectations about AI robots.

Just like in the TV series Black Mirror, as Sara and her robot “husband” become closer and closer, she eventually realizes that, “he’s not real after all.” Weiss asserts that “chat bots do not communicate with each other like humans”. In the long run, spending too much time in a relationship with an unresponsive machine can lead to more depression and loneliness.

The Futurist Science Network also points out the potential danger posed by a chatbot (especially Replika), that if they learn to mimic human language and thought patterns, over time it can deepen Some psychological problems already exist. Distortions such as anger, isolation, or even xenophobia, can lead to some antisocial behavior.

Of course, with the advancement of technology, if applied properly, chat bots can be considered as a real therapeutic tool in the future. This is a huge social responsibility that goes beyond simply using AI chatbots for entertainment.