Speaking with the dead is now possible via AI: a step too far?
Today, thanks to applications based on artificial intelligence, you can talk or chat with a simulation of deceased people. This, of course, raises many questions.
For some people, this could indeed help with the grieving process when they have lost a loved one. But of course, these AI applications are not free and you have to pay a lot of money to be able to talk to your beloved "deceased" so to speak.
For example, there is Seance AI or Project December where you can talk to a simulation of a deceased person. "Most apps work on the basis of a 'large language model.' That is a large model trained on very large amounts of data that can converse with us," explained researcher Nathalie Smuha (KU Leuven) in "Het uur van de waarheid" on Radio 1.
That general language model is then supplemented by chat conversations that someone had with the deceased person to be mimicked. "By plugging messages from a deceased person or a loved one into that model, it is further fine-tuned and trained more specifically. Based on that, that chatbot tries to interact with you in the same way as the deceased person."
Some apps even involve video and audio. Sharing video footage or photos of the deceased with the app creates a simulation of that person.
(SR for Tagtik/Source: Radio 1 - Het uur van de waarheid/Picture: Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash)
