Ghosts in the Machine: Are We Ready for Digital Immortality?
In a ‘surreal‘ development that would‘ve made him proud, people are now taking selfies with the late artist, Salvador Dalí:
You might have heard the topic of ‘deep fake’ artificial intelligence (A.I.) coming up more often in the news lately, mainly around the harms it can cause, for example, by allowing the development of realistic — yet entirely fake — videos of real people.
The Dali Museum’s interactive digital display of the late Salvador Dalí is an example of how deep fake A.I.‘s getting deployed for commercial applications, in this case, to bring a famous artist ‘back to life’ (at least, in a digital sense) to promote a museum exhibit, even allowing fans to take selfies with Dalí!
Meanwhile, firms like ObEN are planning to roll out ‘personal artificial intelligences‘ (PAI) as-a-service, which would allow anyone to create a realistic, personalized digital avatar for a multitude of purposes, from interacting with family and friends to playing video games, to trying on clothes at virtual stores, and (for the celebs among us) interacting with fans.
This technology’s also paving the path to ‘digital immortality’, where our PAIs would continue to exist (in theory, forever) long after we’re gone.
So as more people become actual ghosts in the machine à la Dalí, we’ll need to quickly work out the potential health, psychosocial, legal and other impacts of this emerging trend on individuals and society as a whole.
About the author: Aamer Fattah is a scientist, innovation leader and deep tech expert.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any agency, organization, employer or company.
