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 after-life online


The ethics of virtual immortality and an after-life online

#artificialintelligence

Have you ever wanted to talk to a loved one after they died? It used to be that only those calling themselves necromancers and mediums could claim to contact the dead, but soon digital versions of the deceased could be living just a few clicks away. From South Korea to the US, tech start-ups are looking at ways to keep the dead alive in a digital afterlife that data experts say poses myriad legal and ethical questions the world is yet to properly address. "Technically, we can recreate anyone online given enough data," said Faheem Hussain, a clinical assistant professor at Arizona State University's School for the Future of Innovation in Society. "That opens up a Pandora's box of ethical implications."