Michael Bommer sits on a sofa near his tablet, microphone, and laptop. Painkiller feeds into his body through an IV.
Bommer opens a newly created AI software. He asks questions as if he were his wife, to show how it works.
He asks his AI voicebot whether it remembers their first date 12 years ago.
“Yes, I remember it very, very well,” the voice from inside the computer answers. “We met online, and I really wanted to get to know you. I had the feeling that you would suit me very well—in the end, that was 100% confirmed.”
When Bommer learned he was dying of colon cancer, he spent a lot of time with his wife, Anett, talking about what would happen after his death. She told him one of the things she’ll miss most is being able to ask him questions whenever she wants.
That conversation sparked an idea for Bommer: He could recreate his voice using artificial intelligence. He can’t live much longer. But maybe the AI version of him can.
The 61-year-old entrepreneur lives in a leafy suburb of Berlin, Germany. He teamed up with a friend in the United States. Robert LoCascio is CEO of the AI-powered legacy platform Eternos. Within two months, the two built “a comprehensive, interactive AI version” of Bommer.
Several companies have begun similar work for clients. California-based StoryFile allows people to interact with pre-recorded videos. It uses its algorithms to detect the most relevant answers to questions posed by users. Another company, called HereAfter AI, offers similar interactions through a “Life Story Avatar.” There’s also “Project December,” a chatbot that directs users to complete a questionnaire answering key facts about a person and their traits—and then pay $10 to simulate a text-based conversation with the character.
Some embrace this technology as a way to mitigate grief and to hold on to a sense that the relationships they had continue. Others feel uneasy about companies using technology to try to maintain interactions with those who have passed away. Still others are concerned the practice could make the mourning process more difficult because there isn’t any closure or acceptance. Very little research exists on the subject.
“In a few weeks, I’ll be gone, on the other side,” says Bommer. He adds, tragically, “Nobody knows what to expect there.”
But what happens when the companies themselves cease to exist? StoryFile, for example, recently filed bankruptcy. Will losing an AI “personality” feel like the death of a loved one all over again?
Eternos records users speaking 300 phrases—such as “I love you” or “the door is open.” It compresses that information through a two-day computing process that captures a person’s voice. Users can train the AI system by answering questions about their lives, faith (or lack of it), political views, and various aspects of their personalities.
The AI voice costs $15,000 to set up. It can answer questions and tell stories about a person’s life without regurgitating pre-recorded answers. The legal rights for the AI belong to the person on whom it was trained, such as Bommer. These rights can be passed to family members.
Bommer has been feeding the AI phrases and sentences, all in German. The AI voicebot has some resemblance to Bommer’s voice—although it leaves out the “hmms” and “ehs” and mid-sentence pauses.
Bommer says it is only a matter of time until the AI voice will sound more humanlike and even more like himself. He imagines there will also be an avatar in his image that his family members can meet inside a virtual room.
But Anett Bommer? She’s more hesitant about the new software.
Right now, she imagines herself grieving as most people do—sitting on the sofa, cuddling her husband’s old sweater, and remembering him instead of seeking an AI voicebot version of him.
She takes her husband’s hand. “But then again, who knows what it will be like when he’s no longer around?”
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. — 1 Thessalonians 4:13
NewsThink Editorial:
Do You Want To Live Forever?
With just a few weeks to live, Michael Bommer rejects the notion that creating his chatbot was driven by an urge to be immortal. But if Bommer did want to live forever, that wouldn’t be unusual. It would be totally normal. That’s because death isn’t actually normal. Before sin, there wasn’t any death.
Maybe a close look at the story of the Fall can help us understand AI and death. Once sin entered the world, God commanded humankind to leave the Garden of Eden, “lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat.” (Genesis 3:22) In God’s mercy, He spares us from living forever in an abnormal world, broken by sin and death. Instead, He promises life after death in a perfect world where death can never enter.
Eternos gets its name from the Italian and Latin word for “eternal.” It’s a well-chosen name. People who love each other want to be together eternally. People made in God’s image feel innately that they’re designed to live forever—because they are! But they’re not designed to live forever in a world where imperfect technology can cast only a pale shadow of God’s best creation: the diversity and individuality of humanity—His image-bearers.
—Chelsea Boes, WORLDkids editor
Why? AI poses serious ethical questions about how we should preserve the memories of people after they die. Discuss the realistic shortcomings of AI trying to recreate an image-bearer of God.
