Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Eterni.me - To Skype With The Dead
How much of the trail you leave on the internet, your search requests, your dictations to Google or Apple, would be necessary to convincingly recreate your personality?
“One day, I started wondering what happens to a person’s avatar in the game after they die,” Ursache says. Was there, he pondered, a kind of Second Life purgatory where abandoned avatars lived on in a zombie-like state, long after their human operators had passed away? What would happen if one tried to interact with these avatars?
...He pitched the idea to the group as “Skyping with dead people,” and hurried to note that a lot of the AI technology needed to bring such a project to life already existed in various labs around the world. Despite the group receiving a total of 130 ideas— of which Ursache acknowledges his was the oddest— “Skyping with dead people”was accepted as a project worth pursuing.
As far as I know, Arthur C. Clarke was the first to present a complete version of this idea. Read this excerpt from Arthur C. Clarke's 1956 novel The City and the Stars :
Suffice it to say that long ago they were able to store themselves - or, to be more precise, the disembodied patters from which they could be called back into existence.
Interested in Eterni.me? You might like this earlier article, which has more science fiction references - Digital Immortality For Your Personality.
Via Techcrunch.
...the idea of growing old and dying is, for most Silicon Valley denizens, the furthest thing from their mind. As a former medic from Romania, [Marius] Ursache thinks about death more than most people. He has even turned it into a job. As the creator and founder of a startup called Eterni.me, he spends his days working toward the dream of building Artificially Intelligent 3- D avatars: digital beings that will look, sound and, most important of all, act like individuals who are no longer with us. Ursache’s journey began several years ago when he became fascinated by the game Second Life, a vast online virtual world created by the San Francisco- based developers Linden Labs. Although Second Life resembles a computer game, it differs in one crucial sense. Rather than featuring set objectives and manufactured storylines, players in Second Life refer to themselves as “residents” of the game, and participate in any way that they wish, whether that means running a shop, or simply hanging out with friends.
In the end our ancestors learned how to analyze and store the information which would define any specific human being - and to use that information to recreate the original...
(Read about virtual immortality)
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 2/26/2017)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Computer ")
ElectionSim: China's 'Ender's Game' Battle Sim, Or Lem's 'Kingdom In A Box'?
'So, Ender, we will now begin your education.' - Orson Scott Card, 1985.
Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer
It's a computer, but just barely.
Cortex 1 - Today A Warehouse, Tomorrow A Calculator Planet
'There were cubic miles of it, and it glistened like a silvery Christmas tree...' - Clifford Simak, 1949.
Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness?
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.' - Isaac Asimov, 1975.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Prairie Madness - And Space Sickness
'Space-sickness is one of the most unpleasant sensations that a human being can experience. Not all are subject to it...'
Can Stratospheric Aerosol Injection Control The Weather?
'...I saw a nice black heavy-looking cloud sailing by just now, and I can get the electrical machine out in five minutes to draw it down.'
SETI Suggests Prospecting The Solar System Without Landing
'From a distance it could resolve the cosmic rays reflected from various substances.'
Wolfram Alpha Mathematica Predicted by Science Fiction in 1948!
'The answer to the dumb student's prayer.'
Cislunar Space And The Space Lanes of Golden Age Science Fiction
'He had travelled the space-lanes of the solar system for the greater part of his life...'
NASA Moonbase Update
'The dinner was excellent. It was completely vegetarian — grown in specially prepared gardens in this Moon base...'
Neuralink Will Allow Humans To Communicate With ... Animals?
'Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind.'
Special Lights For Driverless Cars!
'That light is actually the Anamorphic Equalizer...'
'Old People Began to Cross The Continent In Their Own Cars'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
Harrison Bergeron, Illustrated And Practiced
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
Starfall Manufacturing Drugs In Space
'The vast spinning sphere of Factory in the Sky loomed above and ahead of us, gleaming white against the unfathomable jet depths of surrounding space.'
The Solar Oberth Slingshot
'And if it doesn’t work,' inquired Lazarus, 'what does that make us? Sunspots?'
'Maybe The Woman Of Your Life Is Still Under Production'
'The Dillard people had performed a miracle and put all the works in a girl-modeled case.'
'If Anyone Is Watching Earth...'
'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'
Epirus High-Power Microwave Defeats Drones
'...the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and Then one toppled and fell. Then another.'
Cloud Of Space Rubbish From China's Long March Rocket
'Within seconds the material was spread out over fifty yards, in a matter of hours it might occupy several cubic miles of space...'
