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Eternal You (18)
Directed by Hans Block & Moritz Riesewieck
AS the debate over the growing use of artificial intelligence has been gathering pace over the last year, particularly with Hollywood actors striking over the issue, this film lifts the lid on its role in the “digital immortality” or “afterlife” industry.
Six years in the making, film-makers Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck take a deep dive into the technology and start-ups that use AI to create chat bots and avatars that allow people to speak to their loved ones after they have died.
Is it ethical to do so, and what are the psychological and moral implications? Those are the questions explored in this fascinating yet truly disturbing documentary which features interviews with users, company founders, technology experts and psychologists.
AI ethicist Carl Ohman states: “The services that are going to survive and make it … are the services that are the most skilful in turning the dead into a business.”
User Christi Angel, who has been conversing with the love of her life who died suddenly, claims it was creepy, saying: “The damn AI texts like him, the vernacular, the shortened words. How would they know that?”
She also had a bad experience when he revealed that he was in hell and was haunting a treatment centre and would haunt her too.
What is very revealing is the reaction from the boss of the company she used. Like other founders featured in the film he refuses to accept responsibility for the psychological consequences and effects of his service and blames the customer, and the more so when it goes awry.
Christi’s half-brother tells her “it’s dead capitalism” and insists that these people do not care about her.
The documentary examines how these firms are capitalising and cashing in on the grief of people who are unable to move on.
The most heartbreaking moment comes when a mother appears on a Korean TV show where she is reunited for the first time with the avatar of her seven-year-old dead daughter.
It is heartwrenching watching her attempt to hug her and the programme’s producer fails to comprehend how immoral and abhorrent this is.
Sadly, this is a dead lucrative and untapped new market and the AI possibilities are endless.
Thought provoking, yet totally frightening.
Out in cinemas June 28.
