Who needs to die when you've got AI?

John Lennon, awaking from a 43-year dirt nap. Source: Midjourney.

I heard the news today, oh boy: The Beatles will release a new song later this year. Not something from the archives, not a moldering reel-to-reel tape unearthed from the basement at Abbey Road, not a dusty old cassette hidden in Ringo's drum kit.

Sir Paul McCartney recently told the BBC that he's getting ready to release a Beatles song no one's ever heard before. He's taken a demo recorded by his old band mate, John Lennon, and used AI to clean it and mix it into a full recording:

We have now reached the point of virtual immortality. Technology is allowing us to resurrect and/or reanimate the dead. And if we can bring artists back from the grave, what about your loved ones? The answer is, of course, yes. What the hell, why not?

There's actually a name for this: Grief Tech.

The talking dead

There's a small cottage industry of startups looking to digitally preserve and/or reanimate our loved ones after they've bought the farm.

For example, Deep Nostalgia, a free service provided by the My Heritage genealogy site, allows you to upload a photo of a deceased loved one, which it then brings to life using the magic of AI. [1]

This is a photo of my sainted Irish mother as a young woman, probably taken sometime around 1940. (What a babe, am I right? No wonder my father fell for her.)

Now here's the same photo animated by Deep Nostalgia. Even though she passed in 1973, here she is, smiling and looking a bit coy.

Beautiful and yet.... just a little bit creepy, no?

Then there's HereAfter.ai, which is essentially a more interactive version of Storyworth. Instead of asking people to write down their memories, HereAfter has you record thoughts to be played back after you're pushing up daisies.

When I used it, HereAfter presented me with a series of prompts like, "My best friend from high school was..." or "The one person, living or dead, I wish I could have dinner with is..." [2] and had me record answers of up to two minutes in length. In addition, I could upload photos and tell stories of my own choosing.

The site also asked me to record cheesy phrases like, "Hello, I'm looking forward to sharing my memories with you!" and "Oh, I see," in case Dead Dan doesn't understand what's being asked but wants to keep the conversation going.

I can listen to my recordings and redo them until I come up with a version I like (or, more likely, I get tired of redoing it) and then tell it to "Remember that."

Later you can ask Dead Dan questions, and the reanimated me will respond with my prerecorded answers. You hear my actual voice, but you're stuck looking at a static avatar (in this case, my high school senior photo).

The question you really want to ask Dead Dan is, what's the deal with the hair?

The AI mostly comes in the form of voice recognition: When you ask your HereAfter avatar questions, the app figures out what you're saying and finds an appropriate memory to play back for you. [3] Not a very sophisticated use of grief tech, in my humble opinion. But we're really just getting started.

Dead beckoning

The obvious next step in resurrecting the dead is creating an interactive version of your lifeless corpse. Naturally, technology has us covered there as well.

DeepBrain AI's re;memory service combines both Deep Nostalgia and HereAfter, by letting you create a 'digital twin' of yourself that will endure long after you've kicked the bucket.

First, the Seoul, South Korea-company records a seven hour video of you, then it uses AI to synthesize your mannerisms, facial tics, speech patterns etc, to enable ad-hoc real-time conversations with you from The Other Side.

Creating a digital twin will cost between $12,000 and $24,000, plus another $1,200 every time someone wants to come into the Memorial Showroom and have a chat with him/her/it.

Honestly, unless the digital twin can answer questions like, 'Where did you hide all the money, dad?' [4] I'm not sure the $1,200 is really worth it.

Finally — and I do mean finally — there's the eternal hologram.

Last June, 87-year-old UK citizen Marina Smith passed on to her eternal reward. So the mourners at her memorial service were understandably surprised when the former resident of Babwoth in Nottinghamshire showed up at her own funeral and begin taking questions.

The 3D holograph was created by an LA-based AI company called StoryFile, which was founded by Marina's children. [5] They recorded their mom answering questions for hours using "20 synchronized cameras, 3D video technology, depth kits, and state of the art sound equipment," per Business Insider.

I suppose that's one way of getting the last word.

Would you want a digital version of yourself to endure after your subscription to earth has expired? Post your pre-posthumous thoughts in the comments below, and feel free to share this with any friends who are still alive and kicking.

[1] Tip of the COMYAI tam o’shanter to loyal reader Tom F. for pointing me to this site.

[2] Groucho Marx, in case you were wondering. Though he might refuse to sit at a table with anyone who would have him as a dinner guest.

[3] There's also an Alexa Skill for HereAfter, so you can communicate with the after world via an Echo device. Imagine hearing the voice of your dead grandfather pipe up after Alexa mishears something while you're watching Yellowstone. Won't that be fun?

[4] Remember, there's always money in the banana stand.

[5] They also did one with actor William Shatner, who isn't dead (yet). You can ask him (it) questions and he (it) will answer. Talk about going where no man has gone before...