The idea of digital immortality shown in the popular Netflix show Black Mirror might become a reality, as Swedish scientists are trying to make fully conscious copies of the dead.
With artificial intelligence (AI), the scientists believe that they can create the conscious copies after someone dies, Sputnik News reported.
Currently, the Swedish funeral agency Phoenix is looking for volunteers who are willing to give up their loved ones after they die for the study.
The scientists would use AI to reconstruct the voices of dead relatives of the volunteers so that they can communicate with the replica they make.
Reportedly, scientists also plan to build robot replicas looking exactly like the deceased family members and friends.
They hope that with AI, the robot clones might even be capable of performing some tasks and answer simple questions related to weather or time.
Scientists believe that with time, the technology could evolve further where actual sentient human clones can be made, much like the one depicted in the sci-fi series Black Mirror. They'll not just be capable of talking but also will be able to come into physical contact with real people.
Though it still sounds like pure science fiction for now, if it becomes a reality, digital immortality could be achieved.
However, the idea of preserving the memory of the deceased is not new. Prominent futurist Dr. Michio Kaku believes that speaking to our loved ones after they die would be possible soon by uploading our minds to machines.
So, after the person dies, the machine, or avatar, could be used to interact just like it would have been when they were alive.
In fact, Billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk has a company known as Neuralink dedicated to something similar and could potentially do that.
The company that intends to merge biological intelligence and machine intelligence. Neuralink is developing a technology known as 'neural lace', which implants tiny brain electrodes and might one day upload and download thoughts.
