I'm really, really torn on this. On one hand, this is an amazing way to immortalize memories, experience, whole lifetimes of accumulated knowledge and wisdom. On the other, it feels like a severe form of escapism and refusal to move on.
Try watching the movie About Time, from 2013. In short the main character can travel through time to visit his passing father... Until a point. Sound creepy, but actually isn't. A very wholesome movie.
> On the other, it feels like a severe form of escapism and refusal to move on.
There is nothing wrong with it. People deal differently, I guess. I, for myself, would have loved to have something similiar from my parents. Not a whole chatbot, but... Written down and audible memories. The tech is there, just the opportunity wasn't.
Yeah... this doesn't appeal to me at all (speaking as someone who lost one parent a few years ago, and sees the other growing frailer), but if he wants to use this form to capture and share memories, I guess that's fine.
My main gripe is with the headline phrase "Artificial Immortality". It's so far removed from that as to be laughable.
(The subtitle about "re-create his dad as an AI" seems severely over-hyped, too, although I suppose that's true of most uses of the term "AI".)
"At first, many Native Americans were wary of having their photographs taken and often refused. They believed that the process could steal a person's soul and disrespected the spiritual world.
Over time, however, some Native Americans came to cherish photographs as links to ancestors and even integrated them into important ceremonies."
