"They're giving interviews advocating for tougher gun laws, such as when the family of Joaquin Oliver, a victim of the 2018 Parkland school shooting in Florida, created a beanie-wearing AI avatar of him and had it speak with journalist Jim Acosta in July. "This is just another advocacy tool to create that urgency of making things change," Manuel Oliver, Joaquin's father, told NPR."
"And in May, a bearded AI avatar of Chris Pelkey, the deceased victim of a road rage incident in Arizona, gave a video impact statement at the sentencing of the man who fatally shot Pelkey. Pelkey's family created the deadbot. "I feel that that was genuine," said Judge Todd Lang after hearing the AI generated impact statement. He then handed down the maximum sentence."
"The digital afterlife industry, which manages a person's digital assets after their death, is expected to quadruple in size to nearly $80 billion dollars over the next decade. That includes the creation of deadbots. The more immersive these bots become, the more technology companies are exploring their commercial potential causing concern in the research community and elsewhere. "There is powerful rhetoric with a deadbot because it is tapping into all of that emotional longing and vulnerability," said New Yorker cartoonist Amy Kurzweil."
AI avatars of deceased people, called deadbots, are appearing in advocacy and legal settings where they exert persuasive influence. Families have used deadbots to advocate for policy changes and to deliver courtroom impact statements that judges have found compelling. The digital afterlife industry, which includes deadbot creation, is projected to grow to nearly $80 billion over the next decade. Increasing immersion in voice and video deadbots is attracting commercial interest and raising concerns among researchers and commentators about emotional manipulation and ethical consequences.
Read at www.npr.org
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