It's a digital Frankenstein.
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| Black Mirror: Be Right Back |
No one knows where we go when we die. Microsoft might have some ideas.
Last month, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted a patent to Microsoft
that outlines a process to create a conversational chatbot of a
specific person using their social data. In an eerie twist, the patent
says the chatbot could potentially be inspired by friends or family
members who are deceased, which is almost a direct plot of a popular
episode of Netflix's Black Mirror.
In that episode, "Be Right Back,"
a woman named Martha is upset when her partner, Ash, dies in a car
accident on the day they were supposed to move in with each other. It
turns out one of Martha's friends has signed her up for a service that
will let her communicate with Ash through text messages. Of course, it
isn't really Ash, but a sort of AI-based version of him. Suffice to say,
things get weird.
According to the new Microsoft patent, images, voice data, social media
posts, electronic messages, and written letters can all be used to
"create or modify a specific index in the theme of the specific person's
personality." From there, engineers can use the index to train a
chatbot to converse like that person—yes, even if they're already dead.
Even creepier: The application could also don the likeness of your dead
loved one in a "2D or 3D model," and utilize their voice while talking
to you.
This sort of chatbot opens a whole can of worms when it comes to data rights and privacy. "Technically, we can recreate anyone
online given enough data," Faheem Hussain, a clinical assistant
professor at Arizona State University’s School for the Future of
Innovation in Society, told Reuters in April 2020. "That opens up a Pandora’s box of ethical implications."
This sort of chatbot opens a whole can of worms when it comes to data rights and privacy. "Technically, we can recreate anyone
online given enough data," Faheem Hussain, a clinical assistant
professor at Arizona State University’s School for the Future of
Innovation in Society, told Reuters in April 2020. "That opens up a Pandora’s box of ethical implications."
Now, patents aren't always perfect proxies for new products. In many
cases, companies pursue patents for wholly different reasons, including
to protect against future competition. Securing the intellectual
property rights for this sort of chatbot could certainly be Microsoft's
way of ensuring it will have a place in any future market devoted to
AI-based renderings of late loved ones.
That doesn't mean Microsoft will ever produce
something to this effect. The company could sell off the patent to
another firm that wants to get into the chatbot space in the future, for
example. There's always the possibility this idea will never take off,
and it will remain where it is right now: floating in the ether.
And frankly, that might not be such a bad thing.
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