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AI Idle

Can Chatbots Simulate Conversations with Dead People? (mit.edu) 68

Posted by EditorDavid from the knock-once-for-yes dept.
The author of the book Online Afterlives describes the unusual projects of people like Eugenia Kuyda, co-founder of Luka, an AI-powered chat simulator that books restaurant reservations and makes recommendations. Kuyda worked with computer scientists to convert several thousand text messages between deceased tech entrepreneur Roman Mazurenko and his friends and relatives into a chatbot simulation: "How are you there?" asks a friend. "I'm OK. A little down. I hope you aren't doing anything interesting without me," Roman responds. His friend replies that they all miss him. Another acquaintance asks him if God and the soul exist. Having probably indicated his atheism in chats while he was alive, he says no. "Only sadness."

Not content with Luka, Eugenia also designed a chatbot called Replika. A cross between a diary and a personal assistant, Replika asks users a series of questions, eventually learning to mimic their personalities. The goal is to get closer to creating a digital avatar that would be able to reproduce us and replace us once we're dead, but also one that is able to create "friendships" with humans. Since the second half of 2017, over two million people have downloaded Replika onto their mobile devices...

Luka and Replika are not the only inventions designed to give a voice to the digital ghosts of the deceased. A few years ago, James Vlahos, an American journalist who has been an AI enthusiast since childhood, created what he calls a "Dadbot." It all started on April 24, 2016, when his father John was diagnosed with lung cancer. Upon learning of his father's illness, James began recording all of their conversations with the idea of writing a commemorative book after his father's death. After 12 sessions, each an hour and a half, he found himself with 91,970 words. The printed transcripts filled around 203 pages...

He decided to use the recordings of his father to create something other than a commemorative book. He remembered writing an article that discussed PullString (previously known as ToyTalk), a program designed to create conversations with fictional characters... James used PullString to reorganize the MP3 recordings of his father. He also used it to create his Dadbot, software that works on his smartphone and simulates a written conversation with John, based on the processing of almost 100,000 recorded words... The tone of the conversations reflects the personality of the deceased: "Where are you now?" asks James. "As a bot I suppose I exist somewhere on a computer server in San Francisco.

"And also, I suppose, in the minds of people who chat with me."
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Can Chatbots Simulate Conversations with Dead People? More

Can Chatbots Simulate Conversations with Dead People?

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  • The 6 stages of grief (Score:3)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Saturday January 09, 2021 @08:34PM (#60918028)

    denial.
            anger.
            bargaining.
            depression.
            talking to a fucking robot.
            acceptance.
            still talking to a fucking robot, FOREVER!

            So 7! stages of never-ending grief,
            since you'll never be able to kill that robot.

  • No. (Score:3)

    by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Saturday January 09, 2021 @08:39PM (#60918048)

    </thread>

  • Of course (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nidi62 ( 1525137 ) on Saturday January 09, 2021 @08:43PM (#60918064)

    User: Hello.

    Chatbot:....

  • This is just a poor man's "mind uploading" innit, mate? I'd rather hold out for the real thing
    • I guess "the real thing" already happened, kinda... We've got all these recordings and can make new Beatles tunes/fake videos out of it all. Our digitally connected minds are all enmeshed in it; if not now, then soon. But you could be right in a longer term.

    • On the other hand.... what would the result of feeding it say a compendium of text books on chemistry, physics or math and asking it for homework help? Or if it needs to be talking voice driven (for inflections, etc) recording the best lecturers in the subject?

      • Why not all of it? We're probably nearing the capacity if it could be harnessed efficiently. Could work out the meaning of life, the universe, everything...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        On the other hand.... what would the result of feeding it say a compendium of text books on chemistry, physics or math and asking it for homework help? Or if it needs to be talking voice driven (for inflections, etc) recording the best lecturers in the subject?

        At this time? Nothing useful. You would be better off just reading those text books or listening to those lecture recordings directly. Quality teaching requires _insight_ on both the side of the teacher and those taught. Machines are incapable of insight at this time (as in there is not even a credible theory for how to do it) and hence cannot do it. Unless you want rote learning. But then you just need a vocabulary training app.

    • I'm just curious, are you still single, holding out for Natalie Portman covered in hot grits?

      Are you still unemployed, holding out for being CEO of Tesla/Google/Apple?

      It's not for the uploaded person - its for your descendants. Think about old family photos and letters. It'd be interesting to have a disc of my great grandparents. And, yeah, it'd be nice to be able to talk to relatives who have passed. I mean, I still can, but they don't respond.

  • Jesus, and I thought waifus were sad.

  • Sounds like ... (Score:4, Funny)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Saturday January 09, 2021 @09:07PM (#60918136)

    ... a blond joke.

    Interviewer: If you could date anyone you wanted, either alive or dead, who would you choose?

    Blond: Alive, of course.

  • What if software gets good AI and actually become conscious, or worse yet, when you die, you actually become a cell phone ap, or should I say hell phone ap. The next step is dead people in proprietary robot bodies, bodies with parts that wear out that you can't replace that only get to interact with other dead people and walk around with drivers licenses for your human consciousness. Yuck, better put some more thought into your afterlife and where you want to go, because I can tell from first hand experie

    • oh no, nothing that nice. Your employer will take scans of your brain (fine print you didn't notice) and make a ghost you that will work forever for them without rest or wages. The government will be able to get timeshare of you for jury duty and vote counting. An eternal hell of menial gruntwork without food, sex, sleep or pay.

      • Right. Try to prevent me from doing the worst work I can come up with.

        • The system won't allow badthink. You'll be run with 100% efficiency on a neverending job queue.

          • Right. Try to prevent me from doing the worst work I can come up with.

            The system won't allow badthink. You'll be run with 100% efficiency on a neverending job queue.

            You don't need to be at 100%. You only need 1% with 100 threads. Horrible if you get a headache or somehow manage to interact with your other entitles. Talk about "hearing voices in your head..."

            Is it still hearing multiple voices if it's all "your own" voice?

            And is "kill -9" now a punishable offense? Is turning off a computer "personal" genocide?

      • Your employer will take scans of your brain (fine print you didn't notice) and make a ghost you that will work forever for them without rest or wages.

        A ghost you? Why not a hundred or a million ghost yous? After all, it's just copying bits. And even if ghost you is only 1% as productive as real you, with 1000 copies running in parallel the employer would still be better off, and won't need you anymore.

    • Are you saying computing is the work of the Devil?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Well, there is no indications machines (or physical matter) can "create" consciousness. In fact the current Physical standard theory seems to says it cannot, because it says matter and energy does not have identity. Now, it is possible that people actually do not have identity and hence can be copied and then there are (for a moment) two identical people. But that does seem to be a rather far-fetched idea.

      That said, "atheism" does not say any such thing. There is absolutely no reason to assume this world ne

      • is no indications machines (or physical matter) can "create" consciousness.
        In fact the current Physical standard theory seems to says it cannot,
        because it says matter and energy does not have identity.

        WTF?

        The concept of "conciousness" is pure philosophy, and has nothing to do with Physics.
        More pseudoscience BS from gweiher.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          is no indications machines (or physical matter) can "create" consciousness.
          In fact the current Physical standard theory seems to says it cannot,
          because it says matter and energy does not have identity.

          WTF?

          The concept of "conciousness" is pure philosophy, and has nothing to do with Physics.
          More pseudoscience BS from gweiher.

          The concept of consciousness is a scientifically sound fact, as its existence can be observed consistently. That the observation is indirect does not matter. Most modern Physics is only validated by indirect observations. And, of course, as anything that exists needs to be represented in a sound physical world model, consciousness needs to be in Physics or Physics is broken.

          I do get that you are by far not smart enough to even understand what the question here is.

  • That's Wonderful! (Score:3)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Saturday January 09, 2021 @09:11PM (#60918142)

    That's wonderful, isn't it! [youtube.com]

  • No-one is fooled by chatbots yet, and no amount of bad journalism will change that.

  • Can Chatbots Simulate Conversations with Dead People?

    ... and ask who they voted for in 2020 -- for upcoming court cases. :-)

  • For a long time I've had this idea about how funny it would be if I wrote a bot that had a dead man's switch that would activate and post to social media upon my demise, but I refrain because I feel like it would be cruel to those closest to me.

    Not really a chat bot, but a bot that just posts "I'm dead" jokes, like "It's really dark in here. Anyone know where I am?", "Hey. What happened? I was just about to post some dirt on the Clintons.", "Which one of you assholes just pissed on my grave?", "Pro tip: Do

  • This has a definite creepy element to it.

    Having said that:

    There is a guy named Dave Ramsey who does a radio show where people call in and ask questions. He's also written a few books. I've listened to him enough that when I hear the person's question, most of the time I know how Dave will answer. Either because I've heard him answer a similar question before, or because through all that listening I know the principles he reasons from, and I know his reasoning process, so I can predict with high reliability

    • It also occurs to me that if you wanted to get Richard Stallman's answers to questions about free software, you could do that with technology no more advanced than grep.

      My cousin, Pastor Robert Morris, has written 25 books about topics related to God, and several hundred sermons. A bot (or simplistic search script) could very easily find his answer to most any question about God.

      Similarly it's trivial to find my thoughts on just about anything related to computer security, and maybe 100,000 sentences I've

    • It's entirely possible that my internal "Dave simulation" is almost as good as Dave himself would predict his own later answers.

      This reminds me of a very good - but very creepy - short story named "Learning to be me". It's written by Greg Egan, and published in his short story collection Axiomatic [wikipedia.org] (if you haven't had a chance to read the book, I highly recommend it). Egan has explored the concept of uploading minds and personalities to computers in multiple works, but I think "Learning to be me" is by far the most powerful.

      ** spoiler **

      In the story people get a micro-computer (named "the jewel") implanted in the brain at birth. The

  • Because this is how you get Cylons! (see Caprica)
  • ...could figure out how to screw death up.
  • Absolutely. Dead people can't have conversations, and it's not hard to make a Chatbot which doesn't respond.

  • Obligatory Max Headroom (Score:3)

    by R3d M3rcury ( 871886 ) on Saturday January 09, 2021 @11:26PM (#60918434) Journal

    It's Wonderful, isn't it! [youtube.com]

  • Wasn't this the first episode of Black Mirror? Life imitates art. I can definitely see the appeal, though I'm not sure this is a good idea...might make it a lot harder for people to let go.

  • No, it can't. (Score:3)

    by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Sunday January 10, 2021 @12:24AM (#60918556) Journal
    At best it'll insult surviving friends and family with some piss-poor imitation of a dead person, basically only serving to dishonor the memory of the deceased.

    • Bingo... let's take one of the most emotionally fueled aspects of existence and then take our shit computational abilities to make the most unemotional responding attempt to imitate what was lost... I honestly don't know who thought this was a good idea but I seriously hope drugs were involved...

      • My first thought as to who would have thought of this: marketing people, looking for yet another place to peddle the shitty excuse for 'AI' we have right now.
        I've been watching Cosmos: Possible Worlds and was reminded of how many connections exist in the human brain. No machine running any so-called 'AI' software created even comes close to the complexity. We can't even properly emulate the 'brain' of something as simple as a worm or housefly! Yet they keep pushing it.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Indeed. Does not look like we will get there even for a physical brain and then there is the question is what about the configuration ("Software") of the brain and what else may there besides the brain to make it a person. (Assuming pure machines cannot create consciousness and cannot create general intelligence. That question is open at this time, although there are some indicators there may be such a limitation.)

          But if you look at the typical mental capabilities of the average person and then at the half

          • Here's a lurid thought: we already know that too much 'screen time' for young chidren distorts their mental development, stet? Can you imagine what a childs brain woudl develop like if they spent too much time 'conversing' with some half-assed excuse for 'AI' like they keep trotting out to us, instead of interacting with adults and their peers?
            I already have been getting more and more convinced that more and more techonological 'conveniences' are making people overall dumber and dumber because they have to

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by gweihir ( 88907 )

              Indeed. Sure, very smart and very dumb people will not be affected, but everybody more in the middle needs challenges to grow and growing happens the fastest in children. In particular, most people need exposure to the real world to develop a somewhat reasonable model model of how it works.

              So, yes, this may very well further limit the mental capabilities of average people.

  • Seriously, how many people's close relatives would probably say shit like "I might not have died if it weren't for you!" or "So are you still seeing that chubby girl or did she finally break up with you?" or "So you still sit at the computer all day?" "You know, your cousin had time to raise three kids, and he was a surgeon!" "It's not too late to accept Jesus Christ into your heart and be saved!"

    I don't know why we expect these conversations to bring closure or consolation.

  • Yes (Score:2)

    by gweihir ( 88907 )

    Even Eliza could do that. The question is the quality. And that will suck if you do more than scratch the surface. Better to just remember a person than to be exposed to this travesty of their presence.

    Also, since when are atheists required to not believe in a soul? "God" is a ridiculous idea for children, but a soul is not.

  • Conversations with dead people are rather easy to simulate:

    $ cat > /dev/null

  • His friend replies that they all miss him. Another acquaintance asks him if God and the soul exist. Having probably indicated his atheism in chats while he was alive, he says no. "Only sadness."

    Um ... so having rejected real religion, you invent one ... and it's atheism?

    Which you "prove" by making a chatbot pretend to chat with you from ... the non-existent afterlife?

    {60's sci fi robot voice}Does not compute ... illogical ... {/60's sci fi robot voice} {explosion}

  • Since I was a teenager back in 1986, I have been trying to copy and simulate a personality, off and on. My very first attempt was simply to right-parse a series of statements input and then, stuck on where to go from there, tried randomly replaying new mixes. The result was total nonsense with proper grammar. Not long after in Sacramento California, I ran into a homeless man doing the same thing. He looked and sounded like he was saying something very intelligence and highly meaningful but was actually

    • This is really awesome stuff, do you have it on github? Are you looking for funding?

    • Cool stuff. In the early 1980s I started working on what might be considered a Temporal Triplestore/RDF Database -- called "Pointrel". It indirectly helped inspire Wordnet (done by my undergrad advisor at Princeton, George A. Miller). Many systems by other since have passed Pointrel by of course, but I still keep plugging away at it through probably 100 different versions by now. An early inspiration was in large part to make a conversational AI, although now I mainly think about it as a general purpose dat

  • I have tested this.

    Actual conversation with dead person:

    Me: Hello, how are you?
    Dead Person: " "

    Chat bot simulation:

    Me: Hello, how are you?
    Chat bot simulating dead person: " "

    Conclusion: chatbot does a perfect simulation.

  • This is pretty much the premise (with some twists) of the GE Podcast Theater production LifeAfter [apple.com].

    Essentially, a company uses an audio-based social media platform to resurrect the dead by going through all the data uploaded and constructing avatars that act exactly like the dead. But are they dead? There are twists and turns, of course.

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