Digital Immortality and a Digital Paradise
Have you checked out Upload, one of the latest Amazon TV series? The protagonist, computer programmer Nathan, dies prematurely and is uploaded to a Digital Heaven. Is Digital Immortality feasible? Will we be able to transfer our mind to a computer, to turn our neurons and their connections into code and data that run on transistors, to convert the electrochemical signals of our brain into electrical signals in a computer?
In a sense, we are already becoming Digital Immortals. According to Öhman and Watson (Öhman & Watson, 2019), the number of dead profiles on Facebook might overtake the living in about 50 years. Interactions such as birthday greetings on Facebook, thoughts on Twitter or outfits on Instagram are being recorded and will outlive us. Each of them is a snapshot of us. The more of them the better we can be reconstructed.
Humans have always longed for spiritual transcendence and immortality beyond time and space. This need has been partially fulfilled so far through faith and religion. In John 6:51 Jesus states that: “he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day”. But it might change in the future. Will the steadily increasing advancement in technology allow us one day to upload us to a Digital Paradise run on computers? a kind of virtual reality world populated with our digital clones that is seamlessly connected to the physical world.
Building blocks of the Digital Paradise
The main two building blocks for the envisioned Digital Paradise are servers and upload centers.
Servers
Servers are the cornerstone of the Digital Paradise. They will run the computer simulated reality and the digital immortals living in there. Servers will have to be deployed, managed, monitored, updated, maintained and secured against cyberattacks.
Upload Centers
People will be given the opportunity to decide during their lifetime if they want to be uploaded to the Digital Paradise. Upon the event of death, an upload center will upload a digital clone to the servers. If the deceased didn’t choose, the family will take over and will make the decision.
Digital Paradise-Physical World Interaction
One of the key factors for the success of the Digital Paradise is the seamless connection to the physical world. Below some mechanisms of interaction are detailed.
Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality
Living people will visit the Digital Paradise and interact with digital immortals through VR headsets. Similarly, digital immortals will interact with people in the physical world thanks to AR. At the present, however, no VR company has worked on the idea of digital immortality for their virtual worlds.
- An example of an early and very successful online virtual world is Second Life. It grew rapidly since it was launched in 2003, and reached around one million regular users in 2013.
- A more modern virtual world is VRChat. It supports full-body human tracking via Vive Trackers and players receive sensory feedback such as hugs.
- Facebook has also launched a public beta version for Horizon recently. Horizon is a fully immersive VR environment whose aim is to create a huge social space.
Social Media
The digital immortals will have active accounts in social networks. They will leave us text, voice and video messages and also interchange likes.
- ETER9 is a social network similar to Facebook that creates a digital counterpart for every user in the network. The counterparts are independent and remain active when the user are offline. There is an option that allows the counterpart to continue existing in the network after the user has passed away (Morse, 2015).
- As mentioned before, the number of dead profiles on Facebook might overtake the living in about 50 years. Facebook has taken some measures in this regards. Users are now allowed to designate a legacy contact while they are still alive. When they die, their accounts become memorialized.
Robotic Humanoids
Robotic humanoids will embody digital immortals in the physical world. They will work connected to the network when possible and with a local copy when the connection is lost.
- Promobot, a Russian company specialized in robotics and AI, has begun the mass production of humanoid androids that offer digital immortality (Ratner, 2019).
- Hanson Robotics has created a robot called Sophia. She was the first robot to become a citizen of any country when she was granted the Saudi Arabian citizenship in October 2017.
- Another robot with incredible physical capabilities is Atlas, a robot developed by Boston Dynamics with outstanding dexterity and motor skills.
Holography
Holographic real-time interactions will enrich the content with feelings and emotions conveyed through non-verbal communication such as facial expressions, gestures and intonation.
- 8i is an American company that focuses on creating human holograms through their advanced software (Goode, 2017).
- A project at the University of South California called “Dimensions in Testimony” enables people to ask questions to holograms powered by AI that prompt real-time responses from pre-recorded video interviews with Holocaust survivors (USC, 2020).
Phones, Tablets and Smart Watches
Digital immortals will be able to reach us through our phones, tablets and smart watches.
- The startup Replika works on personal AI, PAI. The company has created an AI companion for the moments when you are feeling down, anxious, or you just need someone to talk to. Your Replika is there for you 24/7. The AI avatar collects all our thoughts and memories and then becomes a digital clone of ourselves and lives forever.
- Eternime was a startup that wanted to create PAI avatars who preserved their owners thoughts, stories and memories forever. Unfortunately, the company couldn’t accomplish the mission due to lack of financial resources (Ursache, 2015).
Smart Speakers and Displays
Smart speakers and displays at home could be used in the future by digital immortals to interact with family and friends.
- The three biggest players in the market are Amazon with Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri from Apple. Some of the main use cases right now are streaming music, answering questions, weather forecast, timers and alarms. However, in the future they can be used as an interface to the Digital Paradise.
Business Models of the Digital Paradise
Three alternative business models are presented for the creation of a Digital Paradise:
Public Service
The government will provide the option to every member of the society to upload his consciousness to the Digital Paradise.
The government will be in charge of running both the upload centers and the servers. Maintenance and uninterruptible power supply are some of the key activities. These will be financed with taxpayer’s money.
As mentioned before, digital immortals and society can interact through VR, AR, holograms, smart speakers and robotic humanoids.
Periodic Fee
Relatives, friends or colleagues will pay an annual fee for lodging the digital immortal in the Digital Paradise.
Instead of the government, one or several companies will run the upload centers and servers. Digital immortals might be able to move from the digital paradise of one company to the one of other company.
Companies may offer additional services or features for a higher comfort of the digital immortals to increase their revenue.
The competition among the enterprises will improve the number and quality of the services and reduce the prices.
Digital Workers
Companies could also use digital instances of the digital immortals to generate new revenue streams.
A Digital Immortal of a teacher can, for instance, carry on educating children or pass on his knowledge to new teachers. A deceased customer support representative may continue providing information about products and services as well as handling and resolving customer complaints. A caregiver might keep at assisting people in their daily activities.
Conclusion
The novel concept of a Digital Paradise has been introduced based on popular culture and the idea of Virtual Humans (Burden & Savin-Baden, 2019). Three business models have been proposed and explained: Public Service, Periodic Fee and Digital Workers.
Future work can further explore the concept of a Digital Paradise as well as the three business models presented. New business models can be suggested and even combined. The content of this work is a snapshot of the current status of today’s industry. This picture will have to be refreshed periodically in order not to become outdated. The rapid advancement of technology opens endless possibilities and business opportunities. What is the full potential of Digital Immortality? We don’t know the answer yet, but just thinking about it it’s very exciting.
Bibliography
(Öhman & Watson, 2019) Öhman, C. J., & Watson, D. (2019). Are the dead taking over Facebook? A Big Data approach to the future of death online. Big Data & Society, 6(1), 2053951719842540.
(Morse, 2015) Morse, F. (2015). Eter9 social network learns your personality so it can post as you when you’re dead. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/34015307/eter9-social-network-learns-your-personality-so-it-can-post-as-you-when-youre-dead
(Ratner, 2019) Androids that offer “digital immortality” begin mass production in Russia. Retrieved from Big Think: https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/startup-begins-mass-producing-robot-clones-people?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1
(Goode, 2017) Goode, L. (2017). Are holograms the future of how we capture memories? Holographic time capsules. https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/7/16613234/next-level-ar-vr-memories-holograms-8i-actress-shoah-foundation
(Ursache, 2015) Ursache, M. (2015). The Journey to Digital Immortality. Could an AI avatar collect all your thoughts and memories, then become a digital clone of yourself and “live” forever? https://medium.com/@mariusursache/the-journey-to-digital-immortality-33fcbd79949
(USC, 2020) University of South California (2020). Dimensions in Testimony. https://sfi.usc.edu/dit
(Burden & Savin-Baden, 2019) Burden, D., & Savin-Baden, M. (2019). Virtual humans: Today and tomorrow. CRC Press.
(Gonzalez-Conde, 2020) Gonzalez-Conde, J. L. (2020). Digital Immortality: Digital Clones, Avatars and Identities. Current and Novel Business Models. Master Thesis at the Technical University of Munich.
