The future is an AI nightmare, and here’s a Microsoft patent that shows why. The company just patented AI chatbots that would emulate people. Living, dead, doesn’t matter. The emulations would be based on voice recordings, images, videos, emails, and even social media.
Excited yet?
“The specific person [who the chat bot represents] may correspond to a past or present entity (or a version thereof), such as a friend, a relative, an acquaintance, a celebrity, a fictional character, a historical figure, a random entity etc.”
The Patent
But they’re not stopping at chatbots. Their tech could also recreate you with 3D models based on video and photos. As The Independent puts it, according to the patent you could even get started early by training said chatbots to become “digital replacements.” You know, for after you’re gone.
Sound far out? Maybe. Companies file patents for all sorts of weird inventions. And Microsoft’s patent isn’t explicitly about digital reincarnation. That’s just a Black Mirror side effect.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen tech that could be used to simulate dead people. Add social media to the mix and things get a little more interesting. Is there a growing interest in using all that publicly available info to create living profiles that would continue to exist long after their original owners move on?
Imagine if your Twitter or Facebook accounts analyzed all your posts over the years and created an AI based on you. And then kept posting…forever. What kind of posts would they be? Maybe it’s better not to think about it.
