AI Afterlife - Thoughts on Digital Legacy
I’m assuming you came here from my blog on creating an AI voice to use in narrating Papago Woman. If you didn’t, you should go check it out.
Before we dive in, I wanted to give a quick shout-out to the moral and legal implications of voice cloning—keep in mind that at this moment (2024) we are in a bit of a Wild West scenario. There are not a lot of clear legal precedents around voice cloning, and the ones that DO exist are typically built to protect people that make money from their voices (actors, singers, etc).
If you want to do some nerdy exploring, I recommend this article to get a pretty good overview of the current legal landscape. But, to summarize—we don’t have a solid legal grasp of this tech yet. There is little stopping someone from cloning your voice or likeness. While there are some deepfake laws that stop using your likeness for generated pornography or that are being developed to stop “misinformation campaigns” related to public officials—there are not a ton of policies in the pipeline for us normies.
With that in mind, I want to call for anyone reading this to be cautious in their use of the tech. Be respectful, be kind, remember your Himdag. Just because there isn’t an explicit law against it... don’t be a jerk. This is especially important when dealing with something as intimate as a loved one’s voice or likeness. The technology may be new, but the values we bring to it should be as old as our communities—rooted in respect, empathy, and understanding.
My Experience Recreating My Mom’s Voice
I want to focus this blog on my project and the use of my Mom’s voice specifically. My mom passed in 2014, and I used voicemails of her to create a synthetic AI voice for a project narrating a book.
In my project, I altered her voice to the final result, but I still have a voice clone that is pretty similar to her. The idea of hearing her voice again, after all these years, was both comforting and disconcerting. It felt like a way to bring a piece of her back into the world, a way for my kids to hear the voice of their grandmother, whom they never met. But it also made me keenly aware of the limitations of the technology.
I’m not doing some novel application of the technology—in fact, there is a huge industry being created around the AI afterlife. I wrote a blog in 2023 that I’ll copy below that explores that a bit. In it, I talk about my thoughts on the current landscape, how I see it culturally, and how I see it personally. You’ll see my early thought that I wish I had more media to re-create my mom in some form. Now that I’ve done it, I wanted to circle back to my thoughts on the process and the outcome.
The Emotional Terrain of Voice Cloning
First, the process was weird. I didn’t like it. I already have issues dealing with the passing of my mom; I have since she passed over 10 years ago. I’m not good with emotions. But I think this project actually helped me process my grief.
Part of it was re-listening to her voice over and over to make sure I had it right. I kept thinking, “Man, this doesn’t sound like her at all.” Part of it was that I had a very limited voice sample of her—only a few minutes of audio. But I also think that AI just isn’t dynamic enough. Even with troves of data, I don’t think it can grasp the nuances of a human life and the complexity of something even as simple as a voice.
One memory I have of my mom is that she did baby talk. A lot. I remember as a teenager, I would get so embarrassed by her talking like a baby. But now, as I listen to this AI creation that is attempting to mimic her, I realize I’m missing that quirk of my mom. This voice may rise and fall in a cadence that follows her, but it doesn’t randomly change into a joking and passive-aggressive reminder that I have a dental appointment.
This process made me reflect deeply on the idea that a person’s voice is not just a sound; it’s a living, breathing part of who they are. It carries with it the weight of experiences, emotions, and relationships. My mom wasn’t the same with me as she was with her husband, her friends, her co-workers. She was a plethora of different people, and this AI voice, no matter how close it came, couldn’t capture that multiplicity.
The Limitations and Possibilities of AI Afterlife
Maybe with a larger data set or a better AI model, we will get something closer to replication in the future, but I just don’t think it will ever be perfect. How do you record every nuance of a human? Even my own voice, as I cloned and used it for narrating projects, made me realize it was such a limited scope of me.
It isn’t using the same speaking voice I use for my friends—it isn’t dropping a casual “straw-babies” in a conversation because my daughter used that name for fruit when she was learning to talk, and it just… stuck with me. It was me, but in a very limited sense that I had only moderate control over.
So, even though the industry is on the rise to re-create and simulate life after death, I think AI creations of this type will ultimately be a bit hollow. They may serve as a tool for remembering, but they can never fully replace the presence and complexity of a living human being.
That isn’t to say that it doesn’t have a place in society—as I said in the blog of my project, I’m glad I have a way to share even a small amount of my Mom's voice with my kids. Being able to use that voice to tell a story for my kids is something that I’m really excited about. Is it a replacement for my mom? No. But I want my kids to have a frame of reference for this human being who raised me and helped me to become the man I am today
.
I also think of my legacy - what will my children have of me after I’m gone. Will they want to share it with their children? How will my spouse remember me? Will she want to hear my voice to remember me when she is lonely?
I know many who have lost love ones and they listen to the same voice mails or watch the same videos of them because they miss them. These are slices of their life as well - little moments in time that don’t encompass the complexity of that person. Is generative AI much different?
Ethical Considerations and the Future of Digital Legacies
On the other hand, I do worry that it might complicate grief for some folks. Not being able to let go of someone is powerful. But I don’t view these AI Afterlife technologies any differently than the next step in recording an oral history or taking a picture. It is just a new version of archiving and memorializing. For me, I view the tech as a means of preserving memory - a voice, a piece of who they were.
Where I grow concerned is if it is being used with an AI chatbot backend and being presented as a replacement of the person. Creating a “Bevvie Chatbot” that pretends to be my Mom would be profoundly gross to me. Even if it was accurate and full of transcripts of her words and writings, it feels unnatural. I don't want to pretend my Mom is back, I want to preserve her legacy. But maybe that is my own reluctance with my own bias?
But—to each their own. I’m sure using her voice in the first place is wrong to some. We will see how technology, our grief, and our thoughts on death and the afterlife change as AI technology becomes more common in our lives. As we navigate this evolving landscape, we must ask ourselves important questions: What role should technology play in our memories? How do we balance the preservation of legacy with the natural process of grieving? These are questions that don’t have easy answers, but they are ones we must grapple with as we move forward into this new digital frontier.
—---
2023 Blog Post: AI Afterlife
During a recent discussion on AI, my friend made a comment on death that got me thinking about AI and the discussion of the “AI Afterlife”. I remember reading this Verge article back in 2016 that was about an AI chatbot that was developed from the digital data left behind by someone who passed. Even before that Black Mirror had an episode related to the topic in 2013, Be Right Back of a woman who uses her lover's digital legacy to create a robotic copy of him after he passes.
Now we are seeing the rise of generative AI and everything is accelerating. There has never been a time in history where so many people have a “footprint”. The majority of people throughout history have passed with few artifacts of their lives outside of maybe some written journals or perhaps a few pictures. We have stunning 8k resolution videos, decades-long blogs, and crisp audio from millions of people.
Often the stories around this technology are focused on the elite - folks who hold massive economic or cultural power and have high-stakes surrounding their estate; but the technology has become increasingly available for use by us normie folks. It won’t just be a Tupac hologram dancing on stage in the future - it might be our grandmas too. It isn’t just George Carlin’s family who has to grapple with a public image being altered and re-generated, anyone with a youtube channel or instagram profile can be next.
An AI Afterlife isn’t coming - it is already here. There are companies that have been around for nearly a decade that are dedicated to using AI to re-create us or our family members. Microsoft and Amazon are two giant corporations that are delving into this space right now as well. What this technology is going to mean for society is still being decided, but we should all be knowledgeable about it!
My Traditional Worldview
I’ve always been taught that the O’odham tradition is to keep away from death. My people would traditionally burn the home that people died in, we didn’t say their name so as not to “call them back” from their journey to the next world - the next dimension.
But - We stopped burning homes in the early 1900s, instead we started packing a small bag of their belongings for their grave. We say their names, now with a (bat) added at the end to note for others that they passed and show our respect. We name parks and buildings after departed tribal members. We even have annual memorials for some members, sometimes with large and extravagant celebrations to honor their passing. For many of our community - our traditions around death have changed dramatically from 100 years ago. Not everyone is happy with these changes, and many view them as untraditional and wrong.
Traditions change. Perhaps in 20-30 years it will become normal to have voice, memories, and likeness memorialized into an AI. Maybe we will curate our image after death as carefully as we curate our lives on social media today?
I don’t know what it will mean for our traditional views - to be constantly called back forever. Pieces of our identity - video, audio, text - tucked away in data centers around the world. As pieces of our identity are integrated into large AI models and influencing the generative art and words of people 100 years from now through tiny subtle changes in an algorithm. Not a direct copy, but the subtle influence of thought or likeness to an indescribably large system.
I think of the power created by our voices telling stories or singing songs to our 7th generation and beyond. The ability of our descendants to tap into ancestral knowledge and memory without a gatekeeper in the way. I think of the multitude of people who won’t need to work through an institution to get their voice in the world and be remembered. They have the ability to turn on a camera and start their digital legacy today.
For Creatives
These questions of legacy and digital footprints are especially pressing for creatives. For years there has been a constant drumbeat to get a brand. To post as much as possible about our lives, our processes, our thoughts and passions. To form a public persona and brand that will get others excited for our work, to become “known”.
Unfortunately much of that public brand can and will be co-opted through AI. For example we have holograms, AI George Carlin, etc. The more public the figure, the easier it is to use their existing digital footprint to re-create their likeness.
There are many questions this technology brings up -
Who gets to control your image and likeness when you pass?
How far does that control extend and who keeps ownership?
Should we even keep data and information after passing or should it be wiped?
What does that do to legacy and remembering?
Who gets the right to be remembered, who gets erased?
What parts of us get erased?
What about people who specifically wish to be saved in this way?
With the amount of data we have in the world, and the amount of personal likeness, voice, and personality we put into social media and other places – having a clear directive for family and descendants becomes even more important.
I personally don’t like to think about my digital afterlife. I hate thinking about death generally - I don’t like it, and I think most folks don’t want to think about it.
I know other people of color don’t want to deal with it - it’s one reason they don’t typically have a Will when they pass. AI is just another reason that creatives of color need to ensure they outline what happens to their work and their public data when they pass!
Personal Notes
I have mixed feelings about the AI Afterlife. It feels creepy - but I also think about how I wish my mom had recorded more of her life before she passed. I wish I had more stories from her lips- and even though I realize an AI would be a pale imitation of her, having some way to share her likeness and her stories with my kids would be amazing.
At the same time, I had a hard enough time with her passing that maybe it would have made the grief process even worse if I was able to load a chatbot and have her voice or stories in front of me?
As something of a creative and public figure myself, I consider how my own children will have a much broader and intimate view of my life after I pass. The public brand I’ve created, the writings I’ve done, the photos and videos that I have, the many many stupid comments I’ve left on Facebook. Not even considering if they visit a data broker and get my purchase history, “interest profiles”, or other assorted digital cookies I’ve left behind from my many years of internet use.
I don’t think there are any good answers to this issue yet - other than we should lobby for more personal data protections, take the time to write a will or estate plan, and talk to your family about how you want to be remembered. It’s a bit morbid, but questions of legacy are extremely important for all of us, especially those of us that create a public persona and post pieces of our lives online.
Further Research:
2024 - Is the AI afterlife coming? Sundance Documentaries say yes https://www.fastcompany.com/91021083/generative-ai-death-sundance-documentaries
2024 - ‘I Died That Day’—AI Brings Back Voices of Children Killed in Shootings
2024 - George Carlin's estate sues over AI-generated stand-up special
2017 - Speak, Memory: When her best friend died, she rebuilt him using artificial intelligence
2017 - The strange legacy of Tupac’s ‘hologram’
2013 - Black Mirror S02E01
AI after Life Companies:https://www.soulmachines.com/
Comentarios