The documentary, Eternal You (2024), is
one film that zeros in on the use of AI to contact loved ones who have died. As
the marketing departments of the tech companies providing these products say,
AI can deliver on what religion has only promised: to talk with people beyond
the grave. Lest secular potential buyers be left out, AI can provide us with “a
new form of transcendence.” Nevermind that the word, transcendence, like
divinity and evil, is an inherently religious word. Nevermind,
moreover, that the product is actually only a computer simulation of a person,
rather than the actual person direct from heaven or hell. The marketing is thus
misleading. In the film, a woman asks her dead husband if he is in heaven. “I’m
in hell with the other addicts,” he answers. She is hysterical. Even though people
who write computer algorithms cannot be expected to anticipate every possible
question that AI could be asked and every response that it could give,
government regulation keeping the marketing honest and accurate can
significantly reduce the risk that is from AI’s use of inference (inductive)
and probability that are beyond our control to predict and even understand.
The full essay is at "Eternal You."
