From Customer Support to the Deceased: The Wonder of Chatbots and Smart Software
March 2, 2021
I know that chatbots lashed to customer support departments delivers prompt, effective, and pleasing results. No, not to you, gentle reader, to the outfit using smart software to reduce the costs of handling these organizations’ most important asset — Customers.
Now chatbots have nosed into a new domain. We learned from “Chatbots That Resurrect the Dead: Legal Experts Weigh In on Disturbing Technology.” I learned:
It was recently revealed that in 2017 Microsoft patented a chatbot that, if built, would digitally resurrect the dead. Using AI and machine learning, the proposed chatbot would bring our digital persona back to life for our family and friends to talk to. When pressed on the technology, Microsoft representatives admitted that the chatbot was “disturbing” and that there were currently no plans to put it into production.
The write up offered:
Microsoft’s chatbot would use your electronic messages to create a digital reincarnation in your likeness after you pass away. Such a chatbot would use machine learning to respond to text messages just as you would have when you were alive. If you happen to leave behind rich voice data, that too could be used to create your vocal likeness – someone your relatives could speak with, through a phone or a humanoid robot.
What if a hacker uses the technology to keep a deceased LinkedIn professional alive? Other AI tools could generate reports. A third smart system would issue invoices. What if the bad actors responsible for SolarWinds bring back now departed Microsoft wizards? The possibilities are interesting to contemplate.
Respect for the dead? Sure, among the tech elite. Absolutely.
Stephen E Arnold, March 2, 2021
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