The Intelligence from The Economist The Weekend Intelligence: Digital Ghosts
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Jan 27, 2024 Explore the intriguing concept of creating digital avatars to simulate conversations with deceased loved ones. Delve into personal stories of coping with grief through technology, raising essential questions about ethics and emotional healing. Discover the complexities of digital remnants and the tension between nostalgia and authenticity. The discussion navigates how advanced AI impacts memory, loss, and our digital legacies, prompting reflections on the nature of human connection in an ever-evolving digital landscape.
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Origin of Replika
- Eugenia Kuyda, founder of Replika, lost her friend Roman in an accident.
- She used their text messages to create an AI chatbot that mimics his personality.
Building a Digital Memorial
- Eugenia leveraged her skills in software engineering and natural language processing.
- She created a digital memorial for Roman, unlike traditional memorials.
Recreating Roman
- Eugenia used 30,000 of Roman's texts and 8,000 from others to train the AI.
- Her first message to the chatbot Roman yielded a cryptic, characteristic response.
