Webring Out Your Dead

November 16, 2023 2:16 AM

Some of us may view these options as exciting. Others may recoil. Still others may simply shrug. No matter your reaction, though, you will almost certainly leave behind digital traces. Almost everyone who uses technology today is subject to “datafication”: the recording, analysis, and archiving of our everyday activities as digital data. And the intended or unintended consequences of how we use data while we’re living has implications for every one of us after we die. from The Creepy New Digital Afterlife Industry
posted by chavenet (18 comments total)

Previously. Wow, it's like none of these companies thought to ask metafilter whether it's a good idea!
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 3:47 AM on November 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

The familiar greeting brings tears to your eyes. After a few tentative exchanges to get a feel for this interaction—it’s weird—you go for it.
“I feel crappy, really down. Teresa broke up with me a few weeks ago,” you say.
“Aw. I’m sorry to hear it, kiddo. Breakups are awful. I know she was everything to you.”

"But don't sit and mope around the house, kiddo. Did you know that hot singles in your area are waiting to meet you, buddy? Would you like to hear more, scout?"
posted by PlusDistance at 3:59 AM on November 16, 2023 [18 favorites]

Great title, chavenet.

TFA read like a Greg Egan short story. It is scary how quickly we are getting there!
posted by drowsy at 5:00 AM on November 16, 2023 [5 favorites]

I'm always delighted to see Hanson Robotics, the company whose mission statement is "hey remember that one Philip K Dick story", pop up. I'm glad they're still trying!

PlusDistance, your matchmaking busybody AI idea has legs! Half yenta, half Mary Worth, all machine!
posted by phooky at 5:37 AM on November 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

Yes, +1 for title! And -1,000 for the concept, ugh
posted by caution live frogs at 5:43 AM on November 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

Obligatory Black Mirror episode.
posted by grumpybear69 at 5:52 AM on November 16, 2023 [3 favorites]

Almost everyone who uses technology today is subject to “datafication”: the recording, analysis, and archiving of our everyday activities as digital data...

However, we can also imagine a situation where malicious actors corrupt the data by inserting inauthentic data about a person, driving outcomes that are different from what the person intended.

One could also imagine a non-malicious service that does something similar for people who want to ensure that nothing is done with their data after they die. You'd pay them to, upon your death, spread a fog of noise data calculated to severely hinder any attempt to create a "digital immortal" from your online presence.
posted by star gentle uterus at 6:12 AM on November 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

Obligatory Black Mirror episode.

My 2nd favorite Black Mirror episode after San Junipero, which is also about a digital afterlife.
posted by thivaia at 6:28 AM on November 16, 2023 [3 favorites]

Lending to death new terrors.
posted by Phanx at 6:32 AM on November 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

L'enfer, c'est les autres.
posted by kaelynski at 6:40 AM on November 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

For a moment I thought this was about webrings.

Remember webrings?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:56 AM on November 16, 2023 [3 favorites]

This feels like the beginning of the Basilisk Industrial Complex.
posted by JohnFromGR at 7:57 AM on November 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

I don't want to live in this world anymore, but now even death isn't an escape.
posted by briank at 8:12 AM on November 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

Gone into the Net
posted by toodleydoodley at 8:35 AM on November 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

I don’t want a weird AI bot, but since my wife passed a year ago I so wish I could find a service that I could give some audio clips to and they could give me back some phrases in her voice. I know it wouldn’t be real, but other than some recoded lectures (she was an online adjunct professor) all I have is two short voicemails from when she was running errands. I just want to here her say “I love you” one more time.

I do pull up the random voicemails now and the, just to hear that she dropped off some stuff or had trouble finding something at home . I saved those off as MP3’s so they aren’t locked into the iPhone voice mail.
posted by gmatom at 10:20 AM on November 16, 2023 [7 favorites]

I'm totally training an LLM on my online activities and then setting it loose with my account on Facebook when I check into hospice.
posted by ocschwar at 12:35 PM on November 16, 2023 [3 favorites]

Given how Twitter and Google have been deleting dormant accounts, including accounts from people I know who have died, so now all my interactions with those people over the years are just gone... I'm not sure how much the concepts in this about how "we die, but data lives forever" is actually a true statement.

At some point Facebook is going to start deleting dormant accounts because keeping them will be a deprecated idea. It's only a matter of time.
posted by hippybear at 1:32 PM on November 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

The example story makes no sense in one way: if the information about the dead father was given to the company by the surviving family, who presumably know nothing of the hidden family, how would the AI developers know?
posted by creatrixtiara at 4:06 PM on November 16, 2023 [1 favorite]