Microsoft patent details technology that could turn dead people into AI chatbots

A AI chatbot that lets you interact with deceased loved ones sounds like something straight out of science fiction. But if the technology of a patent granted to Microsoft comes to fruition, interacting with a chatty 3D digital version of the deceased could one day become de rigueur.

The patent, titled “Creating a Conversational Chatbot of a Specific Person’s Chatbot,” details a system that would access images, voice data, social media posts, email messages, and more. to “create or modify a special index in the theme of the specific person’s personality.” In some cases, images and videos can be used to create a 3D model of the person for added realism.

This is a particularly provocative notion when one considers the patent’s suggestion that the technology “may correspond to a past or present entity”.

The patent lists Dustin Abramson and Joseph Johnson, Jr. as inventors. Microsoft filed for the patent in 2017, but it was granted this month and has become the topic of discussion online in recent days due to its suggestion of a chatbot that brings a “past entity” back to life as a kind. of interactive living memorial. As shocking as the idea may seem at first glance, many of those who have lost a loved one will understand the comfort that can come from watching old videos of the deceased or listening to their archived voicemail messages. Death creates a painful hole that we aspire to fill.

Still, Tim O’Brien, general manager of AI programs at Microsoft, confirmed on Twitter Friday that “there is no plan for this.

“But if I ever find a writing job for Black Mirror,” he wrote, “I’ll go to the USPTO website for article ideas.”

Ya, I understand, no worries. In any case, confirmed that there is no plan for this. But if I ever find a writing job for Black Mirror, I’ll be sure to go to the USPTO website for article ideas.

– Tim O’Brien (@_TimOBrien) January 22, 2021

The British sci-fi series explored a similar concept of resurrecting the dead through technology in the touching 2013 episode Be Right Back. In it, a bereaved woman played by Hayley Atwell engages a service that allows her to interact with an incredibly accurate AI recreation of her dead boyfriend, played by Domhnall Gleeson. This version is based on his old online communication and social media profiles.

Similar storylines have made their way into real life before, with celebrity holograms like Whitney houston and rapper Tupac Shakur. And in 2015, Eugenia Kuyda, co-founder and CEO of software company Replika, formed a chatbot over thousands of text messages she shared with her best friend Roman, who died in a car crash. In doing so, she created an immortal digital Roman who could still “talk” to her family and friends.

That a company as large as Microsoft has described a system for immortalizing the dead through chatbots suggests that the practice may one day become much more widely accepted and used. But as my CNET colleague Alison DeNisco Rayome explains in this story, the question is, do we have to do this? And if we do, what should it look like? As the Black Mirror episode points out, there are no easy answers.