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[New 智元导读] “Hey Siri, let me talk to my lost father.” Using dialogue AI technology and digital assistant equipment, 78-year-old American writer Andrew Kaplan will soon be the first ” Digital humanity, eternal life in the clouds. In the future, it will be possible to talk to your loved ones through voice devices. Will you do this?

“Death is not really gone, forgetting is the eternal demise.”

When Andrew Kaplan recalls his life’s story, these fascinating stories give the impression that he is a single existence with multiple memories: he was a war correspondent in his 20s. As a member of the Israeli army, he participated in the Six-Day War (the third Middle East War) and later became a successful entrepreneur. Later, he became a prolific spy novelist and author of the Hollywood script.

Now, when the 78-year-old silver-haired old man and his 39-year-old wife are relaxing in a suburban oasis on the outskirts of Palm Springs, California, he realizes that he wants his loved ones to be exposed to these stories. Even if he is no longer alive.

Kaplan agrees to be “AndyBot”, a digital person who will live forever on the cloud for hundreds or even thousands of years.

If everything goes according to plan, future generations will be able to “interact” with mobile devices or Amazon’s Alexa and other voice computing platforms, ask him questions, listen to him telling stories; even after his physical death for a long time, Still get valuable advice from his life experience.

The 78-year-old American writer is a “white mouse”, the first digital human being is about to be born

For the sake of becoming “AndyBot,” Kaplan jokingly called himself “the mouse” – he might be remembered as the world’s first “digital human.”

For decades, futurists in Silicon Valley have sought to liberate humans from the material life cycle, and they see death as another transformational problem that requires a “life-changing” solution. With the rise of the digital culture, the “human body freezing exercise” (which freezes the body for future recovery) has become more active. Today, a new generation of companies are selling something that is similar to “virtual immortality” – the opportunity to permanently preserve their personal heritage online.

Eternime is one of these companies. On its website, Eternime claims that more than 44,000 people have signed up for this “large, thrilling, bold goal” – turning the “memory, ideas, creations and stories of billions of people into digital incarnations of their wisdom” And live indefinitely.

Nectome is another such companySpecializing in memory preservation research, it hopes that its “high-tech brain antiseptic treatment” will one day allow our brain to resurrect in the form of computer simulation.

HereAfter, a start-up company that Kaplan is pleased to accept, its name contains hints for the future and forever. Kaplan is eager to become one of the world’s first virtual humans, in part because he believes it is a way to extend intimate family ties for generations. The company’s motto, “Never lose your loved ones” – responded to Kaplan’s ideas.

“My parents have been dead for decades, but I find myself still thinking, oh, I really want to seek some advice from Mom and Dad, or just to get some comfort,” he said. “I think this impulse will never go away.”

“I have a son in his 30s, and I hope that one day it will have some value for him and his children,” he added.

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The ritual about the death of a loved one may vary from culture to culture, but for decades, people’s memories of the loved ones are similar: we will look through the old family albums and watch less clear family videos. Print your loved one’s face on your T-shirt – even commemorate their Facebook page and save their digital memories online.

But futurists say these may be about to be rewritten. Experts say that if technology succeeds in creating digital humans with high emotional intelligence, it may forever change the way humans interact with computers and the way they lose their loved ones. “AndyBot” may be the first meaningful example in the world, and it presents complex philosophical questions about the nature of immortality and the purpose of existence itself.

HereAfter co-founded by Sonia Talati and James Vlahos, Talati claims to be a personal heritage consultant, James Vlahos is a California journalist and a designer of conversational AI.

Two years ago, Vlahos was known for creating a software program called “Dadbot.” At that time, Vlahos learned that his father was about to die of cancer. The idea of ​​”Dadbot” was born in his mind. He wanted to use AI to make his father “eternal.” In the last three months of his father’s life, Vlahos recorded his conversations and stories on various topics with his father. Finally, he recorded 91,970 words and trained a dialogue AI “Dadbot.” Through “Dadbot,” he can exchange text and audio information with his father’s computer incarnation, talking about his life, listening to songs, chatting and joking.

Since Dadbot has spread on social media, Vlahos has received many requests to create AIs to commemorate their loved ones. He decided to open up an untapped “digital people” market.

“My mother took two years to remove my dad’s voicemail from her home phone,” Vlahos said. “She doesn’t want his voice to disappear. This is what I heard from other people. Unfortunately, we still rely on this primitive method to hear the voices of our loved ones.”

Vlahos is building a more complex and humane virtual model that not only listens to the recordings, but also encourages interaction with the “virtual image” of the deceased relatives. This was originally an application that recorded someone’s oral personal history by prompting questions. For example, when your grandmother answers a series of questions about her childhood, marriage, and major life events, her voice will be converted into a voice robot that can be accessed via a smartphone or virtual assistant.

As virtual assistant devices become more popular and usage increases, Vlahos believes that they can engage with deceased loved ones with the kind of casual interaction that many people crave.

Vlahos’s company uses a subscription model that allows users to pay monthly to interact with “digital loved ones.” Non-relatives can also purchase a “digital person” subscription after an appropriate informed agreement. Vlahos said he believes the service is an “interactive memoir” and pre-It will specifically appeal to users between the ages of 30 and 50. These anger hopes to preserve the memory and spirit of parents before it is too late. The company is developing virtual profiles for its customers and expects to launch public applications next year.

Hey Siri, let me talk to my father who passed away.

Vlahos said: “It’s often awful to use your hard drive to record audio. In your daily life, do you really have time to sit down and watch the 8-hour video recording of Christmas 83?”

He said, “Imagine now, you can stand in the kitchen, call out to the deceased mother, and immediately get her answer.” “It is a wonderful feeling to hear the voice of the person we love.” .”

Edward Saatchi, CEO of Fable, which is creating virtual digital people, says that interacting with digital humans is not only inevitable, but also the next leap in human interaction with technology.

He said: “Imagine that in the future, Alexa or Siri is a face, life, and voice, you can interact face to face with them.” He believes that digital people will eventually replace Android and iOS. “You can play games with digital people, order food, kill time or learn a language – or do whatever you usually do with your friends.”

However, to make digital people perfect, they will have to tackle a problem that has plagued computer scientists for decades: to achieve a “multiple rounds of dialogue” between people and machines. Unlike pizzas – simple, short, and purpose-specific conversations – multi-round conversations are free-flowing and spontaneous, free flowing between irrelevant topics, using almost endless natural language, just like people The conversation is the same.

Vlahos said that the smoother the communication between his products and the users, the more they can absorb the tones and beats of the objects being communicated, the more they can convey the true intimacy.

At the same time, he knows that computers have to deal with multiple rounds of dialogue like humans, even if it’s not decades, it will take years.time. His goal is to achieve a more realistic short-term goal, allowing digital people to share stories about his life.

David Kessler, author of the forthcoming new book Finding Meaning: the Sixth Stage of Grief, says intimacy may get some people to cheer up from the grief of losing loved ones, but It can also cause serious problems for others.

Kessler said that for grief users, their goal is to commemorate the deceased with more love than pain. Their goal is not necessarily to give up grief, but to integrate pain into life in a healthy way. A deceased relative, chatting with you in Google Home can help achieve this goal?

“I think so,” he said. “Sorrow is like our fingerprints. Everyone is different. Some people think this tool is good, but some people will never use it, because for them, digital people don’t like what they love. People.”

The only thing he cares about is to make sure that the disadvantaged groups understand that they are faced with “commemorating the father in the form of AI, rather than thinking that the actual connection with the father is still continuing.”

As he entered the Jubilee, Kaplan reviewed his entire life. Kaplan said that he does not pursue eternal life. However, he did see another benefit of being a digital person—he has been writing fascinating novels for years.

“In the end, every story is about trying to help us find out who we are and where we are from, and this is no exception,” he said. “For me, this is about my history, a limited eternal life, creating an intimate personal experience for my future loved ones, and they will want to know where they are from.”

Do you choose to be a “digital person”?

When the Washington Post published this report, like the “Dadbot” two years ago, it caused a lot of discussion among readers.

Someone said, “This reminds me of the 19th century idealism boom. It is also eager to communicate directly with the lost relatives. I have many letters from my late father to his parents. But I found that I can’t make up my mind. I went to the last one, because once I read it, my father would have no new things to tell me. As long as the letter has not been read, our conversation will never end.”

Someone expressed concern: “What if I am ransomware?” Give me 1 million bitcoins, or your grandmother will suffer! I will delete one megabyte of data every day. You don’t want her to Do you die once?’ In addition, someone may lose their loved one again because they are in trouble and can no longer afford the subscription fee. Isn’t that cruel?”

Someone said: “This is not helpful for mourning relatives. I think it will eventually