The Weekend Intelligence: Digital Ghosts
The Intelligence from The Economist
The Economist
4.5 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 27 January 2024
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As life moves progressively online, it is becoming increasingly possible to keep people alive in the digital sense. Tech companies are starting to use AI to simulate the personalities of the dead from the data they’ve left behind. The Economist’s science correspondent, Abby Bertics, wanted to figure out how close this possible future is and just what it would look like to conjure a digital ghost of her own.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the weekend intelligence. You're listening to a free episode. |
| 0:06.0 | To listen every week you'll need to be a subscriber. For a free trial of Economist Podcasts |
| 0:11.0 | plus, click on the link in the show notes or just search |
| 0:13.8 | Economist Podcasts in your very favorite search engine. This Economist Podcast |
| 0:18.7 | is sponsored by the Singapore Economic Development Board. For your business to succeed in Asia, you need top talent. |
| 0:25.3 | Singapore offers a diverse talent pool made up of top global talent and a highly educated |
| 0:30.4 | multilingual local workforce. Plus there are schemes to make hiring easy. |
| 0:35.0 | That's why companies like Boston Consulting Group |
| 0:38.0 | and GlaxoSmithKline have chosen to set up here. |
| 0:40.0 | Learn more about building your A-team in Singapore at edB.gov. |
| 0:44.8 | SG slash build your A team. |
| 0:50.0 | The Economist. It is both true and a cliche that we rarely get to say all the things that we want when someone dies. |
| 1:02.0 | That they're taken too soon, that just a little |
| 1:06.8 | more time would ease their passing. |
| 1:09.8 | Dear Abby, I want you to know that I'm still with you. |
| 1:15.0 | One more conversation. |
| 1:17.0 | One more goodbye. |
| 1:19.0 | I'm with you when you're feeling scared or overwhelmed. I'm with you when you feel happy and proud. |
| 1:26.3 | So imagine if you could do just that. If you could reconnect with a dead loved one through their |
| 1:31.9 | digital avatar, a simulated personality, would you? |
| 1:37.6 | No matter what, I'm here with you and I love you so so much. |
| 1:41.3 | What if you did and then you couldn't let go, forever locked in a conversation with a digital |
... |
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