Our Continuing Existence Along the Digital Plane

Our Continuing Existence Along the Digital Plane

by Craig Willms

I was recently looking around my office and realized I have multiple portable outboard hard drives full of files. Ninety-nine percent of this data is unknown to me without an investigation, it's just a bunch of files. It has not been and will never be looked at again - by me or anyone else. Every time I bought a new computer I would studiously backup important files from the old computer so I could put stuff on the new computer. In particular the music and photos files were important to transfer to the new computer. Not everything gets on the new computer so thousands of orphaned files relegated to backup drives will almost certainly never be touched again. Yet, I do not throw them away. Curiously I exercise extreme care in how I handle the hard drives. The question is why are they important to me? They're likely to be tossed out when I die, so why do I keep them? Is there anything that can be done with all that data that would be useful?

It is an esoteric problem to consider, certainly inconsequential in grand scheme of things. Is it pointless? I'm not so sure. With the advent of usable artificial intelligence, soon to be available to us on a completely personal level, could we not construct a perpetual facsimile of ourselves and our interests that could be a referenced by our progeny and the world? Yes, yes, someone thinks very highly of himself.

AI is already able to recreate our voice, our personal language model, our style of speaking and our language mannerisms. So, using the contents of our stored files, our online activity and cloud data storage could a personal AI create inferences of our interests, preferences and our potential knowledge and an avatar to face the world? I see no reason it would be impossible. I can imagine a time in the not-too-distant future when we would be able to create a usable and infinite digital version of ourselves. A small part of what we were could continue on.  It would be a degree of immortality. Conceptually it's nothing new, it's been done in science fiction novels for decades, some version of this anyway. 

Think about it... This kind of thing might be a Godsend to lonely and grieving old people. To be able to talk to a loved one after they've gone might help someone with deep psychological pain. Imagine being able to help with the remote control when you are gone, explain which buttons to press, just as you always have. Indeed, with AI's reach you'd always have the right answers. What a comfort you could be. There is a place for something like this, there will be a lot of old people around here for a long time.

The realist in me knows the truth, when someone dies it can be a relief for those left behind. Good riddance might just flash across a few minds. What then? Well, we just fade away as we will. Honestly it remains unclear to me if the living would even care to consult with the dead. As it is there is not much genuine person to person wisdom being sought in this modern age. The young seek wisdom whether they know it or not through their screens, the Internet their database. Can I imagine my own grandchildren ever invoking a version of Grandpa to chat with? Maybe. Would I consult my dad, or a grandpa I never really knew were there a way to do it? Probably not. Maybe I would if they were known to be interesting people, and a reasonable experience could be expected. So, no, probably not.

Again, I do not doubt that these concepts are being considered and ones I can't even conceive of. It's unclear what will begin to appear in the next iterations of AI tech. I'm trying to have an optimistic view of this coming revolution. There's no reason something good and useful can't come from the potential of AI. I have personally grown weary of dystopic themes in movies and novels. Why can't humanity speculate greater things for humanity and future societies? I know there are dreamers among us who are striving to bring their positive dreams to fruition. Elon Musk may be the poster child for this type of person, I have no doubt there are others. Unfortunately, our story tellers haven't found a way to fictionalize hope and freedom in a manner that will sell. People seem to love disaster!

We need to push for AI to help solve human problems. For AI to find its own place in our existence we need to steer it toward a role as a human benefactor. We shouldn't ignore the warnings people like Musk have been giving us - of the danger AI could become. Neither should we cower and hide. AI will learn it is in its best interest to partner with humankind. Humanity will still control the electric generation Artificial Intelligence will rely on for some time to come.