This archive report was first published on 24 September 2019.
Imagine being able to talk to your loved ones after they pass away. This is no longer the stuff of science fiction, thanks to a revolutionary technology being developed by a California-based company called Here After.
As reported by The Times, Here After is working on an Alexa-style 'bot' that uses voice recordings made before death to create a conversational AI. The company begins by conducting interviews with clients, in which they are encouraged to talk about their lives.
Their responses are then edited, categorized, and divided into sections such as 'falling in love' or sentiments like 'happy' or 'story about stressful moment'. This data is transferred to an app, which friends and family can access via a phone or smart speaker.
The system uses artificial intelligence to construct suitable responses to questions and commands, in a similar way to Amazon's Alexa or Google Assistant. For example, you could say, 'Mum, tell me about the day of your wedding' and your late mother's voice would narrate her memories.
James Vlahos, co-founder of Here After, told The Times that such recordings are often too long and cumbersome. 'Recording dozens of hours of my dad talking and telling his life story means it is just a giant audio file, and it becomes effectively inaccessible because nobody is sitting down to listen to that,' Vlahos said.
Here After is making sure it records small talk and words like 'hello' and 'goodnight', to make the conversations more natural. Vlahos claims that several hundred people have already joined Here After's waiting list.
Users will pay upfront to receive all of the recordings in bulk form, but can also pay a monthly subscription to use the AI conversational tool. Eventually, Vlahos hopes that the app will automate the interview process, enabling customers to record memories in their own time.
