StoryFile employs 20 cameras while posing 250 questions to a subject just before passing away, and then creates a digital clone of deceased loved ones that can chat with mourners at their own funeral.
Through the use of artificial intelligence, a startup company by the name of StoryFile has developed a new product that enables the deceased to speak to mourners at their funerals.
The “digital afterlife” industry, or StoryFile, employs 20 cameras while posing 250 questions to a subject just before passing away. Then, using this information, software constructs a supposed digital clone of the original person.
StoryFile was made available to Marina Smith, an 87-year-old woman who passed away in June. The founder of the company, Smith’s son Stephen, who lives in Los Angeles, startled mourners by putting an interactive image of her on a screen during the memorial service:
“Mum answered questions from grieving relatives after they had watched her cremation,” Stephen told The Telegraph.
“The extraordinary thing was that she answered their questions with new details and honesty,” he added. “People feel emboldened when recording their data. Mourners might get a freer, truer version of their lost loved one.”
Watch the video below:
At Ed Asner’s funeral earlier this year, StoryFile made it possible to display a digital copy of the former president of the Screen Actors Guild. According to Axios, mourners “conversed” with the holographic image of Asner.
“Nothing could prepare me for what I was going to witness when I saw it,” Matt Asner, the actor’s son, said last month.
Some funeralgoers were “creeped out,” Asner continued, because it seemed almost “like having him in the room.”
The digital afterlife industry is only now beginning to grow. Amazon has taken the decision to enter the fray by providing an experimental Alexa feature that can pick up the voice of a loved one who has passed away.
Even Microsoft has acquired patented technology that turns people into “chatbots” through social media posts.