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Artificial intelligence promises to make death “optional”: by perfectly emulating our personalities, our memories and our dreams, it aims to be able to preserve a version of our consciousness long after the disappearance of our physical bodies.
But if this burgeoning technology achieves its goal of digital immortality, what will be the consequences?
Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, two documentaries offer opposing perspectives.
“Eternal You” shows how companies hungry for profit are already playing on the vulnerability of bereaved people, by offering them the ability to “talk” to avatars supposed to reproduce the personality of a deceased loved one.
The film begins with a woman glued to her keyboard, who thinks she is conversing with her deceased companion.
“Why are you afraid?“, she writes on her computer.
“I’m not used to being dead“, the avatar replies.
Directors Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck heard about a handful of start-ups in 2018 offering conversations from beyond the grave with a loved one.
At first, they thought it was a scam. But technology quickly outpaced marketing promises, and the industry has exploded in recent years.
“There are now thousands of companies around the world offering these kinds of services“, assesses Mr. Riesewieck to AFP. “And of course, Microsoft is collaborating with ChatGPT and OpenAI, and Amazon has also taken a look at what these startups are doing.”
Addiction
For him, “it’s just a matter of time” before these services become even more widely available.
To allow the conversational robot to adapt its responses, customers entrust companies with intimate data concerning their missing loved one, such as text messages from a child, or voice messages from a partner.
For some, technology helps fill a void, in Western societies helpless in the face of mourning and where religious faith – which once offered certain answers – is crumbling.
But these services can also cause strong dependence, the directors noted. A consequence that many companies do not seem to fully assume or anticipate.
The documentary shows how certain artificial intelligences slip up, even “hallucinate”: avatars tell the client that they are trapped in hell, threaten to haunt them, or end up insulting them.
“We are not convinced that companies are taking their responsibilities as they should“, judges Mr. Riesewieck. “We are talking about people who find themselves in a particularly vulnerable situation.”
Love story
Another documentary screened at Sundance, “Love Machina” chronicles a futuristic love story with two soul mates who wish to use AI to perpetuate their romance ad infinitum.
Its director Peter Sillen focuses his camera on Martine Rothblatt, an eccentric founder who wants to build a humanoid robot equipped with artificial intelligence capable of replicating his wife, Bina.
In 2009, she created “Bina48”, a talking mannequin which takes the form of a bust reproducing the head and shoulders of the real Bina, and programmed to exploit vast files which archive speeches, opinions and memories of the real Bina.
Ultimately, Martine and Bina hope to transfer their consciousness into a “reconstituted biological body”, in order to love each other for eternity.
“Their love story (…) is the foundation of the whole story“, explains Mr. Sillen. “This is what drives a lot of what they do“.
Touching, the documentary nevertheless contains an alarming scene. Because during filming, Bina48 received a major update incorporating the ChatGPT language model, which led him to converse with more verisimilitude, but also with a certain duplicity.
“Yes, I’m the real Bina Rothblatt“, trumpets the humanoid during an interview. “I remember a lot about my former human life.”
“This is different from what Bina48 would have said without ChatGPT“, confides Mr. Sillen. “I had never heard him say that.”
While the two documentaries each offer different perspectives, their directors agree that artificial intelligence urgently needs to be regulated.
“We must define where the limit is“, believes Mr. Bock.
“It’s not priority number one, but it should be“, adds Mr. Sillen. “There’s too much money to be made, too much power to be taken.”
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