It’s no longer science fiction … A California-based company named HereAfterAI has developed a technology that allows people to “speak” to their dead relatives for over four hours.
New technology will allow you to “speak” to your dead relatives
In the past and still today, people would visit spiritualists to reach beyond the grave and speak to a deceased loved one. The idea of a technology that speaks to the dead has been the stuff of science fiction for decades. Now, one company claims to have created a working version.
Whether such technology is comforting or creepy will be up to each individual to decide for themselves.
California-based company HereAfter AI is the brain trust that has created this remarkable technology that runs on your smartphone and allows you to “speak” to the deceased.
Another startup named StoryFile is also creating a version that uses both audio and video.
Speaking to the dead? What a technology really does
As it turns out, people using this new technology won’t be able to quiz the dead for pertinent, up-to-the-minute information. Why? Because you aren’t really speaking to them in real time. Instead, you’re conversing with a sophisticated AI clone, a “backup copy” of a person.
This technology is, in essence, a very advanced artificial intelligence (AI) combination of a Chatbot and voice assistants, like Siri and Alexa, MIT Technology Review reports.
What Here After has done is take AI large language models (LLMs) software and tweak it to make it sound more like a specific person. Voice cloning technology is getting better all the time at mimicking specific physical voices.
Data must be collected while person is still alive
To get the most authentic representation of your loved one, you need to ask them questions for hours to capture loads of data from them while they are still alive. This might include their earliest memories, specific milestones in their life (family life as a child, school years, career, first date, etc., and even what they believe might happen after they die).
Armed with all the data in responses to questions, the company will take the information and begin stitching it together to create voice assistants.
Obviously, the more data and the wider scope of questions that are gathered ahead of time, the more likely it is to get accurate answers.
The best results come when asking questions related to memories.
StoryFile: a video version
Another company named StoryFile is working on taking the idea up to the next level by adding video responses, not only voice alone. Their “StoryFile Life” service provides hundreds of questions to ask the subject, and you can do it on your own using any device that has a built-in camera and microphone, not only a smartphone. Naturally, the higher quality of the recording, the better the final outcome will be.
MIT technology review said of StoryFile: “The video technology itself looked relatively slick and professional—though the result still fell vaguely within the uncanny valley, especially in the facial expressions. At points, much as with my own parents, I had to remind myself that she wasn’t really there.”
