Metaverse Company To Offer Immortality Through 'Live Forever' Mode (vice.com) 79
Somnium Space is developing a way for people to talk to their loved ones even after they die. All it requires is massive amounts of personal data. From a report: Almost five years ago, Artur Sychov's father was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer, which would ultimately kill him within a few years. The news of his father's illness devastated Sychov. "It kind of hit me that the time I had with him was limited," he told me last week. At the time, Sychov's children were just a few years old, and it pained him to think that they might grow up without a memory of their grandfather. In those moments, he started to wonder if there was some way in which his children might be able to have a conversation with their grandfather, even after he was gone. Sychov is the CEO and founder of Somnium Space, one of the many versions of the metaverse that have sprouted up in recent years. Unlike many of its competitors, Somnium Space is already compatible with virtual reality headsets, allowing for an immersive 3D experience.
The death of Sychov's father served as the inspiration for an idea that he would come to call "Live Forever" mode, a forthcoming feature in Somnium Space that allows people to have their movements and conversations stored as data, then duplicated as an avatar that moves, talks, and sounds just like you -- and can continue to do so long after you have died. In Sychov's dream, people will be able to talk to their dead loved one whenever they wish. [...] To Sychov, these are the sort of potential innovations that make the metaverse a new arena of human experience worth investing in. "They think that it's about selling NFTs and brands selling their stuff, but it's not about that," he told me. "It's much deeper."
The death of Sychov's father served as the inspiration for an idea that he would come to call "Live Forever" mode, a forthcoming feature in Somnium Space that allows people to have their movements and conversations stored as data, then duplicated as an avatar that moves, talks, and sounds just like you -- and can continue to do so long after you have died. In Sychov's dream, people will be able to talk to their dead loved one whenever they wish. [...] To Sychov, these are the sort of potential innovations that make the metaverse a new arena of human experience worth investing in. "They think that it's about selling NFTs and brands selling their stuff, but it's not about that," he told me. "It's much deeper."
need the cure for NAS (Score:2)
need the cure for NAS
Re: need the cure for NAS (Score:2)
Network-attached Storage?
Neal Stephenson (Score:2)
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We will see about that one. Stephenson scored "pretty good" down to "bored to tears" with me in the past. But yes, the idea is certainly not that original.
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It was. And Cryptonomicon.
I'm so sick of companies (Score:4, Insightful)
It's preying on the mentally ill. And doing so at scale. It's horrible.
Re: I'm so sick of companies (Score:2)
Yeah agreed. I mean Black Mirror did this already except it was an android. This is straight up dystopia
Re: I'm so sick of companies (Score:2)
Well, somebody beat me to the Black Mirror reference. It was the first thing that sprang to mind when I started reading the blurb. Rather creepy concept in my opinion.
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No, this would be more like Season 3's 'San Junipero' [wikipedia.org] or The Series Upload [wikipedia.org], and hope you don't end up as a "2Gig".
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They are only doing it because people keep buying things. Stop buying stuff and data warehouses for marketing will die.
They're preying on the mentally ill (Score:2)
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Another way to look at it is you and I are in the minority and the majority of people want to buy crap, have ads flashing in their face, blasting in their ears, and prying into their personal details. When someone sees Amazon ads on another site suggesting something you're actually interested in, most people think it's convenient. I think it's creepy.
Since we're in the minority on this, we're the ones that are atypical and perhaps mentally ill because we won't accept the worst that mainstream society has to
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Since we're in the minority on this, we're the ones that are atypical and perhaps mentally ill because we won't accept the worst that mainstream society has to offer.
Yeah but we are the smart ones. Intelligent elite. They should listen to our calls. /s
Different viewpoints (Score:5, Insightful)
trying to get money from me in exchange for literal nothing.
I recently asked a friend if he wanted to go see a live performance of someone we both like. I was surprised by his response: he has no interest in seeing a live performance, he can get all the same information from online youtube videos.
It turns out, he sees no inherent value in going to see a concert: it's expensive, disruptive, time-consuming (tickets, travel, parking, and related) and you can get the same music done better as an MP3 from the album. He also sees no inherent value in seeing a movie in the theater, or a live-action play.
He's also highly successful and fairly wealthy.
I have to conclude that not all people have the same viewpoints, and not all people have the same emotional structure. For some reason the concert experience doesn't happen to him, and he's fundamentally different from what I would expect.
I think a lot of people make the mistake of assuming everyone is exactly like them and thinks the way they think. Perhaps it's an aspect of the fundamental attribution error [wikipedia.org]. We simply can't conceive of a person who has motivations and personality structure different from our own, or that a different structure might be equally valid or even better adapted to circumstances.
In any event, our capitalistic structure is designed so that people are allowed to have different viewpoints, put them forth in the form of an hypothesis, and see if other sections of society agree.
I don't view this as "literal nothing", and I don't think you really do either.
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> I don't view this as "literal nothing", and I don't think you really do either.
Meta is a marketing scam (vaporware) that has been informed by projects like Star Citizen, nothing more.
I believe it wholly, regardless of what you think.
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that has been informed by projects like Star Citizen
Interesting point. They still basically have nothing, right?
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Nobody wants to be Ripped-off (Score:2)
I have to conclude that not all people have the same viewpoints
Yes, they do but usually, I can see and understand them even if I do not share them. Going to the cinema is a social outing even if it is much more expensive and requires more effort than watching the same film at home. Different people will come to various conclusions about whether the social benefit outweighs the effort and expense. It's also pretty clear to all what you are getting when you buy the tickets.
The problem is that things like this seem to be an overhyped marketing scam based on technology
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Interesting point. If you see this "fake artificial persona" the same as, say, a statue or an oil-painting of somebody, maybe that captures it better. Of course, this thing here may go away at any time and it does not allow "talking to a person", just to a more or less sophisticated chatterbot.
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I think the better argument is to be had around how they plan to guarantee this immortality. They can't.
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The problem is that it prevents people from moving forward after a loss. If I had this when my wife died, I would have lived in the "meta" and been unable to leave. Which is part of the point, I guess.
Minority Report handled that well.
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The reality is going to look a lot more like Eliza than your departed loved ones. The very idea is cruel.
It's the technological equivalent of a medium, but at least they know their job is to offer comfort and closure. This is like getting hit in the mouth with a hammer.
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There's an episode of black mirror about exactly this, from season 1.
It's very optimistic, ends well and everyone is terribly happy.
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Indeed. This is knowingly selling a product that will really harm some people.
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Indeed. We need better content filters, so fuckers like that will not ever again reach us.
Dead Corpse (Score:3)
Walking. Sounds like a depressing place to visit. Where do I sign up?
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Isn't this the plot to... (Score:2)
Isn't this one of the key plot devices in Ready Player One?
Except that (spoiler alert) someone apparently took over the avatar of the deceased and posed as them, to more accurately judge the intent behind the player's responses to the deceased. In that particular scenario, the takeover was benign and ultimately beneficial... but dare I say, what happens when it's not?
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Johnny Mnemonic as well has this in it
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Also Upload [wikipedia.org] (Amazon).
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It’s the plot of Westworld season 2. They kept making copies of people and putting them through exact controlled situations every day. Eventually the bugs were worked out and the clone was indistinguishable from the original.
Re:Isn't this the plot to... FALL or Doge in Hell (Score:2)
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Also a big part of Iain M. Banks' Surface Detail [wikipedia.org].
Hooray for artificial Hell, just to make sure that you/your-digital-copy get properly tortured in an afterlife - you totally deserve it even if your God(s) don't actually exist.
Hackers fun (Score:2)
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That'll probably happen on it's own [wikipedia.org]. The internet is full of shitty people.
Calling all unintended consequences ... (Score:1)
"Not about that" (Score:2)
"They think that it's about selling NFTs and brands selling their stuff, but it's not about that,"
Not until a VC firm drives up to his house with a dump truck full of cash. Like I hate to be so cynical but this guy is the CEO of a metaverse company and is trying to pull on heartstrings to hype his metaverse company. When all you have is a hammer...
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Maybe it's just about "collecting massive amounts of data".
That may be it. Sure, the persoen is dead and gone, but you sill can train models on that data and use them to push crap on people that have bad defenses.
Black Mirror (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like a cross between two Black Mirror episodes, Be Right Back and San Junipero. Both are good and.. depressing.
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Also very close to the theme of "Upload"..
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Except "upload" is a satirical comedy with a pretty good cast IMO. This service is all about pressing money out of the grieving family and friends.
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It was also the plot behind the entire Caprica series (the Battlestar Galactica prequel)
That's wonderful! isn't it. (Score:2)
I wonder if anyone here remembers the Max Headroom episode that featured this idea.
Already been done (Score:2)
"Live Forever as you Are Now with Alan Resnick" https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I want a Disneyland version of my stepdad. (Score:3)
And when I mean Disneyland version I mean Disney Villain version!
Insults the dead, IMO (Score:2)
When I think about all of this? I know if I was dying and wanted to leave some permanent memories for my kids/friends/family, I would make the effort to make some video recordings for them with whatever messages I wanted to say. Even audio recordings would be an option, if I didn't feel comfortable doing video. But I would NOT want somebody else's AI code to pretend to be me, interacting with them in the way THEY believed I would do if I was really still around!
Until.. (Score:2)
"This product is no longer profitable and will be discontinued. Also all that data belongs to us so you can't even get access"
Relying on any service without secondary backups for anything important is madness.
How will I know if they deleted me? (Score:3)
If they do, I should have an easy time finding a lawyer in hell.
Nope (Score:3)
Great gobs of personal data, so a simulation of me can interact with my family after I am dead. Nope, nope, nope.
I miss my dear departed mother every day, but I would never even consider this. (Even if it were possible.) Nope, nope, nope.
all the NOPE (Score:2)
Virtually screaming for all eternity as Roko's Bailisk jabs them in the ass with a pointy pitchfork.
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But if you don't upload your data, how else will the simulation of your mother be able to talk to you after you're gone?
Don't do it. (Score:2)
Like any good scam ... (Score:2)
... this one will find its victims. Enough people are disconnected or afraid enough that they cannot deal with death. The second is more common in the religious spectrum, and religion is a scam the human race has very much not overcome yet. So this disgusting attempt of faking a person is likely to rake in quite a lot of money, unless done so badly that even the most delusional person is creeped out. And when the number of willing scam victims drops too low, they will simply delete this stuff.
The VERY uncanny valley (Score:2)
I actually think the underlying concept isn't terrible, we used to look at old photographs, now we can look at old video, it's basically a more interactive way to remember someone after they're gone.
But even if they somehow had the tech right I can't imagine they'd get enough enough data to make a reasonable facsimile for the person's loved ones.
It's not going to be a touching recreation, it's going to be deep in the uncanny valley [wikipedia.org]. So deep I'd expect most people to end up mildly traumatized by the experien
Johnny Silverhand. (Score:2)
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Straight out of a science fiction magazine (Score:2)
First they create an avatar of your dead loved one. Next the avatar says how boring it is sitting around with the other dead avatars all day managing their stock portfolios. Then the avatar starts lobbying for the very expensive purchase new robot body that the avatar can be loaded into so it can interact with the living family, then ...
Their algorithm is so flawed.. (Score:2)
Now grandpa can be extra racist from beyond the grave!
Yes! (Score:2)
I'm Sorry... (Score:2)
...my responses are limited. You must ask the right question. [youtube.com]
- Dr. Alfred Lanning
Co-founder US Robotics
"I, Robot (2004)"
Long term data preservation, most likely outcome (Score:2)
The most likely outcome for any long term data preservation project is that it becomes a drain on financial resources and is ultimately disposed of. Even if you are well capitalized and take great care to set up a trust, the lifetime of that is only the lifetime of the society that supports such endeavors. You are not keeping this going in one country. Most recently, we've seen how this could end in Ukraine. So. You've got to distribute your data globally, and then you've only got the problem of format
Not worth it (Score:2)
I prefer to reach immortality by not dying.
How good would the conversation be? (Score:2)
For this thing to be of any value, it has to generate text replies from text input.
Not at the crap level of Alexa or Siri, but something with some degree of persistence and discovery.
A look alike avatar is just frosting. The thing has to converse in some way that
resonates with the undeparted, while meeting the sales pitch of being "immortal".
That's the real essence and you don't need VR dancing baloney bit rot.
A chat bot or email bot, query-in, response-out would be almost maybe worth it.
That would be more
Marjorie Prime (Score:1)
There's a movie for this already.
What will they do when someone commits suicide after talking to a "live forever" lover or life partner and the kids decide to litigate?
Sure, why not (Score:3)
A couple of hours of video of you sitting in a chair and talking about practically anything would be enough to construct a decent deep fake avatar of you saying literally anything in real time and being able to show almost any typical facial expression as needed.
The difficult part would be having any kind of a meaningful discussion with it about anything. Some heavy lifting would be required there. You'd need a synopsis built of your life, including a shitload of advertising and personal data, coupled with your travel patterns, personal history, etc etc etc, plus a boatload of AI to keep it on track.
That said, I wouldn't be surprised if something like this became a thing. O Brave New World...
Obligatory Max Headroom (Score:2)
"Yes, it's wonderful, isn't it!" [youtube.com]
(From Deities [dailymotion.com])
Pure PKD (Score:1)
The Austin Lounge Lizards beat this by decades (Score:2)
Grandpa's Hologram.
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Try again...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Let the dead die (Score:1)
It's part of life. It's important that when someone is gone, they're gone. Remember the good times.
Much more convincing than anything from Meta.... (Score:1)
Nothing that Facebook-turned-Meta has said so far has piqued my interest in their VR headset; however, this argument just did so.
All the discussion about NFT's and ways to earn a profit from VR-related technology never really spiked my interest; however, the idea of possibly creating a replica of myself to do my future research that I don't have enough time to complete in my lifetime actually does fire up my interest. My computer science professor in college once told me, "I don't think that you're cut out