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Will the photo of your lost loved one be replaced by a chatty robot?

It seems entirely possible that AI simulacra could be fashioned from the digital remains we now inadvertently leave behind, says Carl Öhman

1 June 2024

9:00 AM

1 June 2024

9:00 AM

The Afterlife of Data: What Happens to Your Information When You Die and Why You Should Care Carl Öhman

Chicago University Press, pp.200, 18

They didn’t call Diogenes ‘the Cynic’ for nothing. He lived to shock the (ancient Greek) world. When I’m dead, he said, just toss my body over the city walls to feed the dogs. The bit of me that I call ‘I’ won’t be around to care.

The revulsion we feel at this idea tells us something important: that the dead can be wronged.

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