Deadbots - AI Deepfakes that Simulate Dead People Risks Haunting Relatives

Okay .. this is weird. Deadbots - AI deepfakes that simulate dead people. The deadbots have the personality and traits of the dead person it is copying. There is a risk of the deadbots spamming the living with messages and adverts using the deceased person’s digital likeness. The living risk being stalked by the deadbot ... 'haunted' by them.

‘Psychological effect could be devastating,’ Cambridge University ethicists say

Independent - AI Dead Chatbot Deepfakes

AI simulations of dead people risk “unwanted digital hauntings”, researchers have warned.

A new study by ethicists at Cambridge University found that AI chatbots capable of simulating the personalities of people who have passed away – known as deadbots – should require safety protocols in order to protect surviving friends and relatives. Some chatbot companies are already offering customers the option to simulate the language and personality traits of a deceased loved one using artificial intelligence. Ethicists from Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence say such ventures are “high risk” due to the psychological impact they can have on people.

“These services run the risk of causing huge distress to people if they are subjected to unwanted digital hauntings from alarmingly accurate AI recreations of those they have lost. The potential psychological effect, particularly at an already difficult time, could be devastating.” The findings were published in the journal Philosophy and Technology in a study titled ‘Griefbots, Deadbots, Postmortem Avatars: on Responsible Applications of Generative AI in the Digital Afterlife Industry’.

Does sound like a nasty exploit from those that can tune it. Once the state has declaimed one dead, risky job going with that fraud. Tough job if you are not really dead, has happened.

Under the rules of war, playing on the oppositions sympathies is one tactic used. For a more civilized way of life, got problems all over it to try this level of gaslighting. Might work on the occasional dementia patient that is isolated. For any with a strong family and friend network, has WTF all over it.

a reply to: FlyersFan

I dont know FlyersFan.

I mean if they can produce VR characters that resemble and sound like old relatives combined with an AI persona.

It might bring some form of happiness to those of the departed.

I would give just about anything to talk to even a semblance of my father, grandmother and grandpa again.

Plus taken to its logical conclusion and with enough answered questions and variables.

If it quacks like a duck and looks like one...............

originally posted by: andy06shake

It might bring some form of happiness to those of the departed.
.

... until the deadbot spams them with ads and stuff and 'haunts' them.
Apparently that's the issue here. That could happen.
I don't understand AI at all.
I just know some guy last week arrived here and was posting AI generated crap.
It totally was fake and not human like at all.
I don't know how deadbots can imitate dead people ...
but apparently they do.

a reply to: FlyersFan

I don't know how deadbots can imitate dead people ...

How much training data is available on that person is a big part of it. If they have a big facebook page or other things it helps the AI tune into the rhythms of that individual. It is not exactly the same as the dead person was, but can mimic some of the main character traits. From there sounds like a lot of other scams, offer something for nothing, but end up taking everything.

a reply to: FlyersFan

Im not suggesting there are no concerns regarding the technology in question.

The veritable minefields are after all rather self-evident.

But just like any other tool the purpose to which it is set will donate benevolence or malevolence.

As to people here at ATS posting AI-generated content.

People have been doing so for quite a while now.

Take for instance RT thread about massive stone spaceships apparently unearthed which were clearly AI-generated images.

The real question would seem to be how well they managed to imitate dead people considering the lack of knowledge base, then again all it may take is access to the likes of a person's social media accounts to create a facsimile of their original persona.

Suffice to say through the likes of Strong AI or AGI artificial general intelligence is still rather a ways off in the future.

The future is apt to be rather a strange place by my guess but nonetheless interesting.

builtin.com...
www.moveworks.com...#:~:text=Strong%20AI%2C%20also%20called%20artificial,and%20adapt%20to%20unfamilia r%20environments.
www.ibm.com...

It can be really hard accepting that your loved one is gone; I'm not sure my heart could take 'resurrecting' them again, and to be tortured by them spamming me with ads doesn't sound fun at all.

At the very least it could mess with the grieving process making it harder to pick up the pieces and get back to living again. I don't think pretending they're still here would help me, and can think of one that would probably be my undoing.

No thanks.

a reply to: nugget1

Somehow I'm reminded of the movie "Things To Do In Denver When You Are Dead".

Or at least the business where people recorded their thoughts and memories on VHS tapes for the viewing pleasure of loved ones and friends.

Minus the adds and spamming of course.

a reply to: FlyersFan
In another 10 years, they'll be able to put that AI into a robot with the likeness of that person. Now that will be creepy.

a reply to: Hakaiju

Think what people a couple of 100 years in the past would make of today's society.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke

Considering the pace at which technology is progressing creepy to us may very well be commonplace to the next generation.

a reply to: andy06shake
I'm too old to get used to something like that. But I can see tomorrows youth embracing it. It sure will put a lot of Elvis impersonators out of business.

a reply to: Hakaiju

I'm probably a little long in the tooth myself Hakaiju with regards to a lot of what tomorrow will produce.

AI taken to its logical conclusion, as in a AGI would indeed put a lot of people out of business via mass control and automation.

And in the process directly change the paradigm humanity has followed throughout the greater part of recorded history.

For the better or worse of the matter.

Ethier freeing us from our shackles or adding a few more.

But the singularity is not exactly on our doorstep just yet, it could be 50 years in the future or 500.

I'm inclined to believe the likes of AGI may be able to build us a better Zoo than "They" do all the same.

It has a very Mirror of Erised feel from the Harry Potter books.

You’re captivated by the imagines you wish to see unable to break away you dwell within them as your life falls apart around you.

I don’t think this would be helpful at all quite the opposite actually.

a reply to: andy06shake

a reply to: Athetos

I don’t think this would be helpful at all quite the opposite actually.

One man's poison is another man's cure.

Picture being able to record a facsimile of some of the greatest minds alive.

Taken to its logical conclusion.

It could bring about a form of digital immortality.

The technology has merits as well as negative proclivities attached as far as i can establish.

Each to their own i say.

As to the ethical and moral concerns, in this day of age, when do they not raise their head and say hello?

I would love to see my wife smile one more time

But

would it help me move on the path of grieving or would it hold me in a place of not letting go

perhaps in moderation like all things could see some positives but overuse might lead to false hope

RIP my soulmate TC 17/1/2023 aged 46

a reply to: UpIsNowDown2

RIP UpIsNowDown2 Mrs.

And once again sorry for you loss.

Think we have discussed in the past but i lost my dad the same year to something similar.

Im thinking the likes of 3d picture frames imbued with the likes of a person's digitally recreated persona.

Along the lines of something reminiscent of the pictures from Harry Potters world only made so via technology as opposed to magic.

Creepy for some, but rather informative and a comfort of sorts for others.

If the technology were feasible and refined.

Well considering I deemed all social media tied to a real identity as totally toxic and abstain completely from all forms of social media. No Facebook no Snapchat no nothing. I thought it was insidious and evil 16 years ago and I think it’s I insidious and evil now.

This is that taken to the enth degree where as now you will be forced to compare and even compete with the dead.

Brutal and poisonous.

Technology taken to its final degree is indistinguishable from magic.


To me the finiteness of our existence that it is short is what gives our lives and relationships within it weight. We value friendship and family because they are not constants and can leave us at anytime. Sure the memory’s stay but the people fade and that is natural and good.

We are finite not meant to last for ever not meant to interact forever not meant to be compared to everyone alive not meant to be compared to the dead.

Many have expanded their spheres of perception just a little too much outward and not enough inward.

Just my hot take on this F’d planet.

a reply to: andy06shake

a reply to: Athetos

Technology taken to its final degree is indistinguishable from magic.

I think i may have alluded to such somewhere above via the Arthur C. Clarke quote.

We are finite not meant to last for ever not meant to interact forever not meant to be compared to everyone alive not meant to be compared to the dead.

We might not be meant to last forever but what we build or help spawn may well transcend what we perceive to be mortality aka possibly humanity 2.0.

Just my hot take on this F’d planet.

Canny argue about the "F’d planet" part, but if so it us that have done it, at least to us.

They are already doing this with dead celebrity musicians. Ive seen on you tube people doing AI generated songs using dead musicians covering songs they never did in life. Like on youtube, I listened to an AI cover featuring Kurt Cobain singing Black Hole Sun by soundgarden, and it was eerie. Like, it sound so real and wrong, because I know this never happened. Yet so years from now, a kid might hear that and think its legit. Reality and history can be easily altered now, with little evidence it ever was. Next level orwell.

a reply to: FlyersFan
I don't get it. If you know a loved one has passed, you know the deadbot is fake.

Also, the use of the likeness of someone you loved might actually cause spite and work against their sales pitch.