
Alexa and Google Home will soon let you talk to the dead - tysone
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/29/hey-google-let-me-talk-my-departed-father/
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'There were similar things in her father's study, four of them, black
lacquered cubes arranged along a low shelf of pine. Above each cube hung a
formal portrait. The portraits were monochrome photographs of men in dark
suits and ties, four very sober gentleman whose lapels were decorated with
small metal emblems of the kind her father sometimes wore. Though her mother
had told her that the cubes contained ghosts, the ghosts of her father's evil
ancestors, Komiko found them more fascinating than frightening. Her father
sometimes meditated before the cubes, kneeling on the bare tatami in an
attitude that connoted profound respect. She had seen him in this position
many times, but she was ten before she heard him address the cubes. And one
had answered. The question had meant nothing to her, the answer less, but the
calm tone of the ghost's reply had frozen her where she crouched, behind a
door of paper, and her father had laughed to find her there; rather than scold
her, he'd explained that the cubes housed the recorded personalities of former
executives, corporate directors. "They're not conscious. They respond, when
questioned, in a manner approximating the response of the subject."'

From _Mona Lisa Overdrive_ [1988] by William Gibson

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latexr
> Will the rise of virtual beings be the next step in the human quest for
> immortality?

To the subject, a digital copy others can speak to is about as useful as a
statue, i.e. not at all. What’s the point in “questing” for immortality you
can’t experience?

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latexr
Black Mirror fans may recognise this as the plot of “Be Right Back”[1].

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_Right_Back](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_Right_Back)

