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[Solifuge]

Using Neural Networks to simulate the recently deceased, and aid in the grieving process

The story was a pretty moving one, if you've the time and interest. Some friends of the deceased in that article mentioned how they'd never been able to ask him for advice before he died, but the advice was something he'd say. Others said the process was like sending a message-in-a-bottle to the deceased... the replies felt strange sometimes, but it was a way of helping them say some of the things they never got to say, and all that.

I have complicated feelings about this, but what a weird and interesting application of the technology.

Spoiler: Some chats with a Neural Net AI trained using old texts. (click to show/hide)

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Mark my words, people are going to start taking "death snapshots" of people's neurology to create computerized shadow copies of them as soon as it becomes possible. Not true transfer of information, but a much more accurate version of this.

[Sergarr]

Mark my words, people are going to start taking "death snapshots" of people's neurology to create computerized shadow copies of them as soon as it becomes possible. Not true transfer of information, but a much more accurate version of this.

I'd imagine they would start taking "life snapshots" much earlier, to create digital slaves virtual-world workforce to deal with all that shitload of information we've got going on in our world and make sense out of it.

[TempAcc]

Thats, uh, kinda creepy. Not for the whole "talking to the dead" thing, but about the idea of talking to a computer simulation as if it were the deceased person. I guess its ok and hey, if it helps people, I'm all for it, but its p creepy to me regardless :v

I mean, what happens when we get whole brain emulation? Will people keep pet AIs imprinted with their dead relatives' personalities so they can talk to them when they feel lonely? I mean, whatever floats your boat, but that may just fuck up the grieving process even more :v

And there's no need to simulate people just to handle all the absurd info that goes into some systems (and we've already reached a level of complexity in some things, such as the stock market, that makes it actualy impossible to fully grasp with a human mind or even advanced binary supercomputers), you can already set up neural networks to do that, though its still far from a perfect solution (and very computing intensive, though that will prob chance once quantum computers become more feasible).

[Solifuge]

Mark my words, people are going to start taking "death snapshots" of people's neurology to create computerized shadow copies of them as soon as it becomes possible. Not true transfer of information, but a much more accurate version of this.

I'd imagine they would start taking "life snapshots" much earlier, to create digital slaves virtual-world workforce to deal with all that shitload of information we've got going on in our world and make sense out of it.

Hmm. Speaking of which, isn't anyone training a Neural Network to do mundane information-handling and interpreting tasks yet? Like, can we make office drones obsolete the way we did with farmhands when the combine harvester was invented?

[TempAcc]

Me thinks there are such things as lawyer and accountant AIs already (I'm sure I read something about it some months ago), its just those systems aren't completely reliable just yet since they can sometimes interpret an input in an odd manner and fuck things up badly, and if you need humans to supervise those AIs, then why use AIs in the first place?

So ye, it'll prob still take some time until those systems are reliable enough to become popular.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Thats, uh, kinda creepy. Not for the whole "talking to the dead" thing, but about the idea of talking to a computer simulation as if it were the deceased person. I guess its ok and hey, if it helps people, I'm all for it, but its p creepy to me regardless :v

I mean, people talk to inanimate corpses as if they were the person, this isn't meaningfully more creepy than that.

I mean, what happens when we get whole brain emulation? Will people keep pet AIs imprinted with their dead relatives' personalities so they can talk to them when they feel lonely? I mean, whatever floats your boat, but that may just fuck up the grieving process even more :v

A good deal of the grief of death is being forced to separate from the deceased before the living are mentally ready to let go. This seems to be why things like car crashes can cause a lot more suffering than long-term terminal illness, because in the latter case the living have long forewarning and can make an effort to prepare themselves. This system, I think, might help to manage that more than it creates the risk of never letting the dead rest.

Of course, with true whole brain emulation we have computerized immortality, in which case aw fuck yeah gonna survive to the end of the universe.

[TempAcc]

>:v I dont care that my AI clone lives forever, I care that I live forever. Hook me up on some weird brain cell renewing treatment, exchange my whole body (except for key parts of the brain) for a technocopy and call me TempAccyborg the eternal hair fetishist.

Though I guess I'd be ok with having multiple copies of me handling different aspects of my life, maybe with their own synthetic bodies so I can have a big autosexual orgy my own MOBA team made entirely of ME.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

If a nanomachine swarm was released into your brain that replaced each and every individual neuron only as they died of age and cancer, causing no conscious effect on you and taking place gradually over a decade, is that you at the end?

[forsaken1111]

If a nanomachine swarm was released into your brain that replaced each and every individual neuron only as they died of age and cancer, causing no conscious effect on you and taking place gradually over a decade, is that you at the end?

If the simulation is perfect then all you're doing is replacing a biological machine with an electronic one. There is no difference in the information being processed.

[Frumple]

Like, can we make office drones obsolete the way we did with farmhands when the combine harvester was invented?

Dunno about neural networks, but we've definitely been automating away office drones. Have ever since automated phone stuff started getting implemented, never mind office and database software and whatnot.

[Descan]

If a nanomachine swarm was released into your brain that replaced each and every individual neuron only as they died of age and cancer, causing no conscious effect on you and taking place gradually over a decade, is that you at the end?

that's actually kind of wanna i want to make tho

never thought about it being limited to dead neurons, tho. was considering they'd scan a neuron, eat it, snuggle in and set up the same connections, and then move onto the next neuron.

my only worry was that if i make a nano-particle neuron that mimics natural ones too closely, then it might just end up being worthless. I mean it needs to communicate with natural and artificial neurons, engage in neural pruning the same way the natural brain does, and grow and multiply in the same situations

if i mimic a natural neuron too closely, it might end up having the same lifespan and disease chances as a natural one :v back to square one :V

[Starver]

When your neural network interface can tell the son who you gave up as a baby how to deal with the many and varied challenges of living upon a different planet and having abilities well beyond those of the natives, then it might be some practcal use...

[Loud Whispers]

If a nanomachine swarm was released into your brain that replaced each and every individual neuron only as they died of age and cancer, causing no conscious effect on you and taking place gradually over a decade, is that you at the end?

Buddhism is useful here

Just as there is no one component in a chariot is the chariot, it is the sum total of the chariot's parts that make up the chariot, no one instance of you in time is wholly you. The holistic 'you' is the sum of all that you were in every instance of time

[hops]

Using Neural Networks to simulate the recently deceased, and aid in the grieving process

The story was a pretty moving one, if you've the time and interest. Some friends of the deceased in that article mentioned how they'd never been able to ask him for advice before he died, but the advice was something he'd say. Others said the process was like sending a message-in-a-bottle to the deceased... the replies felt strange sometimes, but it was a way of helping them say some of the things they never got to say, and all that.

I have complicated feelings about this, but what a weird and interesting application of the technology.

Spoiler: Some chats with a Neural Net AI trained using old texts. (click to show/hide)

The Romans did this already with a really good cold reader sitting in a cave, git gud scientists.