{"id":20739,"date":"2025-01-24T09:00:53","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T10:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=20739"},"modified":"2025-01-24T10:28:03","modified_gmt":"2025-01-24T10:28:03","slug":"eternal-you-and-the-ethics-of-using-a-i-to-talk-to-dead-loved-ones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=20739","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Eternal You\u2019 and the Ethics of Using A.I. to \u2018Talk\u2019 to Dead Loved Ones"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Examining what it means to make money by selling the bereaved on an illusion, the film feels like something of a warning.<\/p>\n

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In the 1960s, the science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke coined a useful adage: \u201cAny sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\u201d He was right, as demonstrated by the almost mystical reverence with which people tend to describe artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT. We know it\u2019s just software. We even kind of understand how the program works. But because it\u2019s so advanced that it feels uncanny \u2014 like it knows <\/em>me \u2014 we treat it with veneration and a little fear, as if it is a god and not a creation.<\/p>\n

And, increasingly, we turn to A.I. to answer the sorts of questions and fulfill the kinds of longings that religion once solved. That is the topic of the new documentary \u201cEternal You\u201d<\/a><\/strong> (available on demand<\/a> and directed by Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck).<\/p>\n

As the title suggests, \u201cEternal You\u201d is mostly concerned with a very particular use of A.I.: giving users the illusion of talking to their dead loved ones. Large language models trained on the deceased\u2019s speech patterns, chat logs and more can be made to imitate that person\u2019s way of communicating so well that it feels to the grief-stricken as if they\u2019re crossing the border between life and death. Those tools can be comforting, but they\u2019re also potentially big business. One of the film\u2019s subjects calls it \u201cdeath capitalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

I first saw \u201cEternal You\u201d a year ago during its festival run, and when I rewatched it recently I was startled to realize how much has changed in those 12 short months. We\u2019ve learned about \u2014 or just wholesale adopted \u2014 A.I. friends<\/a> and A.I. partners<\/a>. Our social media feeds are now flooded with \u201cpeople\u201d who are not people at all, and Meta announced plans<\/a> to create them systematically on their own platforms. The idea that there was a lot of money to be made in letting us chat with an imitation of a dead person felt a little fringe to me a year ago, but I\u2019m pretty sure now that I was wrong.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The subjects of \u201cEternal You\u201d range from the bereaved to the skeptical to the software creators. Some people like the experience; others find it deeply disturbing. But what\u2019s more interesting are the questions animating the documentary: not whether it\u2019s ethical to try to talk to the dead, but whether it\u2019s ethical for a software firm to sell that \u201cability.\u201d As Sherry Turkle, the eminent sociologist, notes in the film, A.I. is a \u201cbrilliant device that knows how to trick you into thinking there\u2019s a there<\/em> there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEternal You\u201d isn\u2019t really about overcoming death, as it turns out. In a wide-ranging and somewhat rambling manner, it is about humans\u2019 desperation to find meaning in life wherever they can, and how companies are rushing to fill that gap and inspire almost religious devotion, even in the professionals making the tools. But it also feels like a warning: That\u2019s not your loved one on the other end at all \u2014 and it\u2019s not magic either.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Examining what it means to make money by selling the bereaved on an illusion, the film feels like something of a warning.In the 1960s, the science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke coined a useful adage: \u201cAny sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\u201d He was right, as demonstrated by the almost mystical reverence with which people tend to describe artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT. We know it\u2019s just software. We even kind of understand how the program works. But because it\u2019s so advanced that it feels uncanny \u2014 like it knows me \u2014 we treat it with veneration and a little fear, as if it is a god and not a creation.And, increasingly, we turn to A.I. to answer the sorts of questions and fulfill the kinds of longings that religion once solved. That is the topic of the new documentary \u201cEternal You\u201d (available on demand and directed by Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck).As the title suggests, \u201cEternal You\u201d is mostly concerned with a very particular use of A.I.: giving users the illusion of talking to their dead loved ones. Large language models trained on the deceased\u2019s speech patterns, chat logs and more can be made to imitate that person\u2019s way of communicating so well that it feels to the grief-stricken as if they\u2019re crossing the border between life and death. Those tools can be comforting, but they\u2019re also potentially big business. One of the film\u2019s subjects calls it \u201cdeath capitalism.\u201dI first saw \u201cEternal You\u201d a year ago during its festival run, and when I rewatched it recently I was startled to realize how much has changed in those 12 short months. We\u2019ve learned about \u2014 or just wholesale adopted \u2014 A.I. friends and A.I. partners. Our social media feeds are now flooded with \u201cpeople\u201d who are not people at all, and Meta announced plans to create them systematically on their own platforms. The idea that there was a lot of money to be made in letting us chat with an imitation of a dead person felt a little fringe to me a year ago, but I\u2019m pretty sure now that I was wrong.The subjects of \u201cEternal You\u201d range from the bereaved to the skeptical to the software creators. Some people like the experience; others find it deeply disturbing. But what\u2019s more interesting are the questions animating the documentary: not whether it\u2019s ethical to try to talk to the dead, but whether it\u2019s ethical for a software firm to sell that \u201cability.\u201d As Sherry Turkle, the eminent sociologist, notes in the film, A.I. is a \u201cbrilliant device that knows how to trick you into thinking there\u2019s a there there.\u201d\u201cEternal You\u201d isn\u2019t really about overcoming death, as it turns out. In a wide-ranging and somewhat rambling manner, it is about humans\u2019 desperation to find meaning in life wherever they can, and how companies are rushing to fill that gap and inspire almost religious devotion, even in the professionals making the tools. But it also feels like a warning: That\u2019s not your loved one on the other end at all \u2014 and it\u2019s not magic either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20741,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20739"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20742,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20739\/revisions\/20742"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}