Now technology is
changing death again, with tools that let you get in one last goodbye
after your demise, or even more extensive communications from beyond the
grave.
People have long left
letters for loved ones (and the rare nemesis) with estate lawyers to be
delivered after death. But a new crop of startups will handle sending
prewritten e-mails and posting to Facebook or Twitter once a person
passes. One company is even toying with a service that tweets just like a
specific person after they are gone. The field got a boost last week
when the plot of a British show "Black Mirror" featured similar tools,
inspiring an article by The Guardian.
Schedule social media posts long into the future
"It really allows you to
be creative and literally extend the personality you had while alive in
death," said James Norris, founder of DeadSocial. "It allows you to be able to say those final goodbyes."
DeadSocial covers all the
post-death social media options, scheduling public Facebook posts,
tweets and even LinkedIn posts to go out after someone has died. The
free service will publish the text, video or audio messages directly
from that person's social media accounts, or it can send a series of
scheduled messages in the future, say on an anniversary or a loved one's
birthday. For now, all DeadSocial messages will be public, but the
company plans to add support for private missives in the future.
DeadSocial's founders
consulted with end of life specialists while developing their service.
They compare the final result to the physical memory boxes sometimes
created by terminally ill parents for their children. The boxes are
filled with sentimental objects and memorabilia they want to share.
"I don't think that somebody would continually be negative and troll from the afterlife."
James Norris, founder of DeadSocial
James Norris, founder of DeadSocial
"It's not physical, but
there are unseen treasures that can be released over time," Norris said
of the posthumous digital messages.
Among the early beta
users, Norris observed that younger participants were more likely to
make jokes around their own deaths, while people who were slightly older
created messages more sincere and emotional. He's considered the
potential for abuse but thinks the public nature of messages will be a
deterrent. The site also requires members to pick a trusted executor,
and there is a limit of six messages per week.
"I don't think that
somebody would continually be negative and troll from the afterlife,"
Norris said optimistically. "Nobody really wants to be remembered as a
horrible person."
The UK-based startup
will only guarantee messages scheduled for the next 100 years, but in
theory you can schedule them for 400 years, should your descendants be
able receive Facebook messages on their Google corneas. The company has
only tested DeadSocial with a group of beta members, but it will finally
launch the service for the public at the South by Southwest festival in
March. Fittingly, the event will take place at the
The last, private word
For those interested in
sending more personal messages -- confessions of love, apologies, "I
told you so," a map to buried treasure -- there's If I Die.
This company will also post a public Facebook message when you die (the
message goes up when at least three of your appointed trustees tell the
service you've died), but it can also send out private messages to
specific people over Facebook or via e-mail.
Though If I Die has
attracted a number of terminally ill members, the company's founders
think it could be appeal to a much wider audience.
"Somebody that knows
he's about to die gets time to prepare himself; the big challenge is
when it happens unexpectedly," said Erez Rubinstein, a partner at If I
Die.
The Israeli site
launched in 2011 and already has 200,000 users. Most have opted to leave
sentimental goodbyes, and written messages are more common than videos,
according the company. So far, the service is entirely free, but it
plans to launch premium paid options in the future.
"It's an era where most
of your life and most of your presence is digital, and you want to have
some control over it. You want to be in charge of how you are perceived
afterward," Rubinstein said.
A tweet-bot to remember you by
A more extreme version of this type of control lies at the heart of _LivesOn, a new project with the catchy tag line "When your heart stops beating, you'll keep tweeting."
Still in the early
stages, _LivesOn is a Twitter tool in development at Lean Mean Fighting
Machine, an advertising agency in the United Kingdom. The agency is
partnering with the Queen Mary University to create Twitter accounts
that post in the voice of a specific person, even after he or she has
died.
"People have a real faith in what technology can do."
Dave Bedwood, a partner at Lean Mean Fighting Machine
When people sign up, the
service will monitor their Twitter habits and patterns to learn what
types of content they like and, in the future, possibly even learn to
mimic their syntax. The tool will collect data and start populating a
shadow Twitter account with a daily tweet that the algorithm determines
match the person's habits and interests. They can help train it with
feedback and by favoriting tweets.
"It's meant to be like a twin," said Dave Bedwood, a partner at Lean Mean Fighting Machine.
In the short term,
Bedwood and his team said it will serve as a nice content-recommendation
engine. But eventually, in the more distant future, the goal is to have
Twitter accounts that can carry on tweeting in the style and voice of
the original account.
The people behind the project warn against expecting Twitter feeds fully powered by artificial intelligence, or worrying about Skynet, any time soon.
"People seem to think
there's a button you can press, and we're going to raise all these
people from the dead," joked Bedwood, who has seen a huge spike in
interest in the project over the past week. "People have a real faith in
what technology can do."
Artificial Intelligence
is still a long way from being able to simulate a specific individual,
but recreating the limited slice of personality reflected in a Twitter
feed is an interesting place to start.
The _LivesOn service is hoping to roll out to a limited number of test users at the end of March.
As with the other
services, _LivesOn will require that members choose an executor. At this
point, it's as much a thought experiment as an attempt to create a
usable tool.
A little bit of immortality
All these companies see
the potential for technology to change how people think about death.
Goodbye messages can help people left behind through the grieving
process, but composing them can also be comforting to people who are
uncomfortable with or afraid of death.
"We shy away from death.
It reaches us before we approach it," DeadSocial's Norris said. "We're
using tech to soften the impact that death has and dehumanize it. It
allows us to think about death in a more logical way and detach
ourselves from it."
The prospect of
artificial intelligence, even in 140-character bursts, can also be
comforting to people who see it as a way to live on.
"The afterlife is not a
new idea, it's been around for quite a long time with all the different
versions of heaven and hell," Lean Mean Fighting Machine's Bedwood said.
"To me this isn't any stranger than any one of those. In fact, it might
be less strange."
Source: CNN
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