Digital Immortality: Digital Clones, Avatars & Identities
Abstract
Digital Afterlife is upholding as well as altering digital trace data of clients who more often have their daily activities or routines associated in the cloud space. This happens according to their tenacious decree which is pre-arranged and brought into place under the situation of death or inability of operating their profiles which are a cybernetic illustration of themselves. In this era of technology, the modes of transmitting as well as exchanging information are adopting better means that are self-improving, evolving very swiftly. The user-generated digital footprints in cyberspace are used to develop digital avatars, which help the bereaved members to grieve the sudden death of the main user or allow them to leave behind their legacy for future generations. Under this impression that through digital avatars, our loved ones can be brought back to life, at least in the digital form, this thesis addresses the present scope of web-based services of the Digital Afterlife Industry (DAI) startups, their current business models, technologies, services along with a few situational setbacks like recessions and pandemic preparedness of the industry that render services which help to cope with the institution of death in addition to the consequences associated with it. The thesis concludes by presenting a novel business model for the digital afterlife startups that could cater to a larger audience and give a better experience to the members using the services.
Keywords: Digital afterlife industry, Business models, Start-ups, Digital footprints, Trace data.
1. Research question
The main objective of the thesis is to recognize digital afterlife industry related start-ups around the world to identify their scope, current business models, technology base and services they offer to their customers and later pursue towards the final goal of formulating a novel business model of the same that could cater to a larger audience and give better experience to the members using the services. A few situational setbacks like recession and pandemic preparedness of the industry are also discussed that would help them to be sustainable and robust through uncertain situations like we have right now. Robotic cloning (Luca robotics, 2020) and whole brain transplants (Tyson, 2010) are out of the scope of the present study.
2. Research need
“When we are born, we are all diagnosed with the same condition- death.” (Yes Theory, 2020). This quote summarizes the two important events in everyone’s lives, birth and death. We have taken them for granted not talking much about them. According to statistics (ITU Statistics, 2020), internet usage predominantly social media and its environment in our lives has significantly increased over the years which heaps a plethora of trace data during or after the death of the user. Also, artificial intelligence is the most promising and emerging technology now (CompTIA, 2020). Combining all the above-mentioned principles and statistics, a new industry called the digital afterlife industry (Öhman & Floridi, 2017) has evolved which helps us understand the institution of death and the practices revolving around it like grief (Mulder, 2014). Afterlife start-ups curate avatars that serve many purposes in our life’s like being a grief consular, companion and digital legacy keepers to name a few.
A personal bit of my life also formed the impetus for this thesis as me and my family lost my younger sister in 2008 due to a terminal form an auto-immune disease called Systemic lupus erythematosus.
3. Methodology
The method used was desk research (Hague & Wilcock, 2020) as it is an economical and quick way to understand a domain by studying what has been already done in the past. This readily answered many initial questions and simultaneously helped deviate to ideate the final goal of the thesis. Initial reading was done by gathering literature using key words both generic and specific via search engines like google scholar. LinkedIn and YouTube also provided a lot of information. Start-ups were searched through venture capital databases like AngelList, Venture radar and CrunchBase.
A total of 40 start-ups across the globe (concentrated majorly in USA) were analyzed primarily being profit oriented. They were classified into four categories namely Information management services and Online memorial services (One-way or Passive immortality) and Posthumous messaging services and Re -creation services (Two-way or Active immortality) based on functionality, technology and services provided to its customers. Interestingly, some of the start-ups were found to be providing multiple services and hence falling into multiple categories. Re- creation services (like Digital 3D avatars, Text avatars and Voice avatars) will be the major focus for this study.
4. Novel technology proposal and business model innovation
An effective way to stay in the market as a potential competitor is by being innovative thru technology that harnesses novel business models effectively (Cuofano, 2020; Osterwalder, 2005). Keeping in view that mobile phones are like an external organ to us humans beings and we all have at least one to sustain our daily lives, a new mobile application (called “Trigger second life”) completely powered by artificial intelligence has been proposed which would subsequently add more value to the entire business model or parts of it, especially of the re-creation services start-ups as they are the core of our study.
The AI powered application will accumulate trace data like user interactions, activities and develop a customized avatar in the background which will be triggered to public or family after the YES/NO response from friends and family in the absence of the key user or be triggered by the key user himself. The monitoring capability of the AI algorithm will be the bases of the application through which it will assess and know if the user is still alive or dead. In order to confirm the same, it will then trigger mails to the listed members in its database when it doesn’t seem to notice regular or no activity by the main user for a period of time called the buffer time which is pre-set by the main user. The following building blocks of a typical business model canvas are described with possibilities of novelty attached to them that comes in about by the new application mentioned.
5. Discussion
Since Covid-19 emerged as a global pandemic, millennials are more anxious about their mortality than ever before (Jain, 2020; Miller, 2020) . Hence, the months especially from February to May of 2020 noticed high volumes of social traffic towards digital afterlife start-ups. As coined by one of the start-ups founders, that this pandemic is a delicate opportunity for them to grow that all the firms must navigate thru mindfully.
This pandemic has not just proved to be a health crisis but also has affected economies around the world and pushed even the healthiest economies into recession. As this study focuses on digital afterlife startups, most of them being founded after the last economic crisis of 2007–2009, it is a valid point to highlight the importance of recession preparedness of startups and encouraging them to be lean and agile, hence have a contingency plan to deal with situations of uncertainty (Miklashonok, 2020). Sometimes recessions can also be considered as trigger points to either bounce back or start a new venture from scratch that could eventually turn out to be very profitable and sustainable. According to a very famous American venture capitalist Scott Harris Lenet, who describes that startups in general can still be innovative and manage its survival during a recession by being:
· defensive when it comes to supporting the existing portfolio of products, and
· by being offensive and careful while scrutinizing the newer opportunities that the recessions or crisis brings along with it (Lenet, 2020).
6. Limitations
The concept of using one’s trace data after their death raises a range of ethical predicaments. Firstly, not all the data can be reviewed in totality either by the key user or the bereaved members before they are handed over to be used in the creation of an avatar.
AI programs are intelligent and self-improving, but they fail to be contextual like humans, lack wisdom and common sense.
There are concerns over having two digital avatars of the same person based on two different sets of trace data being used to create them.
On the contrary to this, what will happen if we don’t have enough trace data is another point.
We should not let technology rule over our emotions by being too emotional attached to the avatar.
7. Implication for future research and practice
The application can be made more intuitive by adding the concepts or elements of gamification in and around the elements of life and death.
Aspects like political, legal, ethical, socio-economical scopes have not been discussed in this thesis and hence can be considered for future research so that the ecosystem of afterlife industry can survive in harmony even in the absence of its main users.
Finally, questions like how long the avatars can/ should survive in the digital realm can be put to perspective by experts, as at one point of time the digital avatars will outnumber the physical human beings. A deep study can be done on until when the avatars of the main users can be a part of the digital afterlife umbrella.
8. Conclusion
YOLO is the acronym used for “you only live once” which will soon be re-phrased as “you get to live twice- both now and after death”. It is totally dependent on us as humans how we embrace this technology with an open mindset as it already shows positive implications of reducing grief.
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