There's been a lot of discussion in recent years about the practice of capitalizing on celebrities' digital likenesses without their consent, whether after they die or while they're still alive. Zelda Williams, for one -- the Lisa Frankenstein director and daughter of Robin Williams -- slammed the "disturbing" trend of people trying to recreate the voices and faces of the deceased last year, as striking actors fought for, among other things, better protections around studios' potential use of AI clones. Yet despite the obvious ethical issues, companies keep doing it. Soul Machines just unveiled "Digital Marilyn," an AI chatbot designed to look and talk just like Marilyn Monroe. The company, which specializes in what it refers to as Biological AI-powered Digital People, debuted the Marilyn bot at SXSW on Friday in a partnership with Authentic Brands Group.

Last week, Mona Lisa smiled. A big, wide smile, followed by what appeared to be a laugh and the silent mouthing of words that could only be an answer to the mystery that had beguiled her viewers for centuries. A great many people were unnerved. Mona's "living portrait," along with likenesses of Marilyn Monroe, Salvador Dali, and others, demonstrated the latest technology in deepfakes--seemingly realistic video or audio generated using machine learning. Developed by researchers at Samsung's AI lab in Moscow, the portraits display a new method to create credible videos from a single image.

The late Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time is one of history's least likely best-sellers. Yet the book was a pop-cultural phenomenon, selling more than 10 million copies and popularizing everything from advanced cosmological theories to the phrase "turtles all the way down." It was also adapted into a documentary of the same name by Errol Morris. A Brief History of Time (which is currently streamable on FilmStruck) was Morris' first major documentary after The Thin Blue Line and the first of his portrait films. Combining interviews with Hawking, his family, his friends, and his colleagues with clips from Disney's bizarre live-action sci-fi film The Black Hole, archival images, and, of course, a Philip Glass score, A Brief History of Time is the kind of film that only Morris could make. After Hawking's death on Wednesday, I called up Morris to talk about making the film, why Hawking was his generation's celebrity scientist, and their friendship, which continued for decades. Isaac Butler: What drew you to the book--or to Hawking--as a subject?

The company behind the world's first sex robot has revealed its customers most frequently want sex dolls that look like Marilyn Monroe. The American sex robot manufacturer True Companion disclosed the leading lady is requested more frequently than any other celebrity. However, there is no Monroe sex robot as the company cannot recreate someone without their permission. Instead the company says it creates a'very beautiful blonde with a full figure' as a substitute. An American sex robot manufacturer revealed the Marilyn Monroe is requested more frequently than anyone else with half of orders the company receives are for celebrity lookalikes.

WHAT is the next stage in the evolution of internet search engines? AltaVista demonstrated that indexing the entire world wide web was feasible. Google's success stems from its uncanny ability to sort useful web pages from dross. But the real prize will surely go to whoever can use the web to deliver a straight answer to a straight question. And Eric Brill, a researcher at Microsoft, intends that his firm will be the first to do that.