Hi-Phi Nation: The Digital Future of Grief

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4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 11 April 2023

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Justin’s mom was diagnosed with cancer, he knew he wanted to keep talking to her after she died. So together they made an AI version of her, training it on her speech patterns and memories. Now he is scaling his findings so that anyone can continue their relationships with loved ones after their deaths. Justin even believes this can one day lead to digital immortality. Grief experts are only now dealing with bereaved people who create digital versions of their loved ones. We look at what they say about the phenomenon, and what philosophers think about whether the best AI version of a person can actually be them. Guests include Alexandra Salmon, Justin Harrison, CEO of You, Only Virtual, Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor, and Dr. Debra Bassett. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	A show where philosophy and reality meet from late late late.
0:10.3	Alexandra Sammon has been saving her mom's voice mails for years.
0:14.4	Hello sweetheart, dad and I are out to eat and he just went to the stage.
0:19.3	Alex, why have you been doing that?
0:21.6	There's just something about her voice that always makes me feel better.
0:25.7	I just thought I would call you and tell you how proud I am with you.
0:30.6	It's almost like a portal into our relationship.
0:34.0	Think of your family and I love you very much.
0:37.3	And then one day I changed cell phone carriers and all of the voice mails disappeared.
0:45.9	I was devastated.
0:49.0	Did you try to get them back?
0:50.9	Yes I did.
0:52.2	I actually checked the cloud, but unfortunately they weren't there.
0:56.9	I really felt like I had lost a part of her that I just don't think I can ever get back.
1:04.1	Is she still alive?
1:06.0	She is, thankfully.
1:08.4	So I have started backing up her voice mails, but she's 78.
1:14.8	So I'm very aware that our time is limited together.
1:20.3	What are you going to do with all this audio one day?
1:23.4	It's really interesting because when I've been thinking about this, I came across these
1:28.6	companies that are doing these really interesting and kind of unsettling things to reanimate the
1:37.6	dead.
	...

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