The Echidna: Virtual immortality is grief tech's new frontier

It was late on a bleak and windy Saturday morning and the old man had come prepared to speak to the dead.

He was sitting in a fold-out chair by the side of a grave, a round of sandwiches wrapped in wax paper resting on his knees, a mug of something warm clutched in one hand. There was a radio playing quietly at his feet but he wasn't listening. There was too much to say.

We'd seen him a couple of times on previous visits to the cemetery. Graveyards beckon the grieving who ache with loneliness and are unable or unwilling to say goodbye. Who can blame them? You can live with someone for more than half a century and believe you've exhausted everything there is to say, only to realise when they're gone how much remained unsaid and unacknowledged.

It was hard to look away and even harder to resist wandering over to place a comforting arm around the old bloke as he sat talking by wife's granite headstone. But intruding on such an intensely private moment didn't seem appropriate, either.

Technology, of course, has no such qualms about trespassing on ground others are too fearful or respectful to tread. But if what took place in England in the middle of last year is any guide this may not be such a bad thing, particularly for anyone still craving the presence of someone they have lost.

Marina Smith was 87 when she died last June. At her funeral a few days later she spoke humbly about her life and its many achievements. After that she took questions from the large crowd of mourners.

Smith had been a school teacher and tireless campaigner who co-founded the United Kingdom's National Holocaust Centre and Museum. In the months leading up to her death she was filmed reminiscing about her life for several hours by 20 synchronous cameras. The footage was processed and an artificial intelligence system then spliced together appropriate clips to answer the crowd's questions.

"Relatives were staggered by my mum's new honesty at her funeral," said her son, Stephen, whose company Storyfile plans a wider rollout of the technology. "She had been too embarrassed to reveal her true childhood. A question about it at the funeral suddenly had her revealing her childhood in India that we knew nothing about."

It's easy to dismiss what took place at Marina Smith's funeral as nothing more than a computerised sleight-of-hand. But with artificial intelligence now undergoing an astonishing transformation, it offers a compelling hint of what is to come.

Amazon is developing technology that will allow its digital assistant Alexa to mimic the voices of dead loved ones, allowing Grandma to read stories to the grandkids long after her passing. "Grief Tech" is a burgeoning industry as online companies offer real-time chatbots and digital avatars that re-create the dead based on digital remnants like Facebook photos, videos and text messages.

Re-animating the dead is the most visceral example of how AI is going to reshape and distort our relationship with reality. Last week a photographer was awarded a major international prize, only for him to turn it down after revealing it was AI-generated. At the same time music streaming services like Spotify were grappling with a flood of AI-generated songs including 'Heart On My Sleeve', a track that went viral based on the unauthorised vocals of well-known stars Drake and The Weeknd.

And this is just the start of what Google CEO Sundar Pichai regards as the most revolutionary technology created by the human race - "more profound than fire or electricity or anything that we've done".

We've all heard the Terminator-style fears expressed by even cautious scientists that AI might one day become sentient and replace human life with machines. But a letter earlier this month calling for a pause in AI research, signed by thousands of prominent technology advocates including Elon Musk, more closely sounded like the frustrations of a once-curious crowd desperately trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

It's too early for us to comprehend the enormity of AI's power and how radically it may alter our lives. But if AI can offer solace to the grieving and mitigate their suffering, who are we to complain?

My mother-in-law slept with her husband's pyjamas beneath her pillow for a long time after his death. His fading scent offered enormous comfort and helped her get to sleep. But she would have traded those pyjamas immediately just to hear his voice again.

HAVE YOUR SAY: Would you feel comfortable having AI-generated conversations with the voice of a dead loved one? Have the dangers of artificial intelligence been over-exaggerated? Or do you fear the coming AI revolution? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au

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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

- The reality of Australia's rental crisis has been laid bare in a new survey, which reveals less than one per cent of rentals are affordable for people earning a full-time minimum wage. It is the worst result ever recorded by Anglicare Australia's rental affordability snapshot, which surveyed nearly 46,000 listings across Australia.

- Australia's migration system is set to undergo a major overhaul after a scathing review described it as "broken" and leaving the country at risk of falling behind in the global race for skilled migrants. Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil outlined the changes, which will reset the country's skilled migration focus based on data and trends, in her address to the National Press Club on Thursday.

- The laws governing Australia Post must change for there to be any hope the struggling service can survive. Chief executive Paul Graham delivered a frank assessment of the organisation's grim financial situation during a speech to the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia, in Melbourne on Thursday.

THEY SAID IT: "The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race...it would take off on its own and redesign itself at an ever increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete and would be superseded." - Stephen Hawking

YOU SAID IT: The Greens go into early campaign mode, pledging to be the party of renters and further eroding the two-party hold on Australian politics.

Julie says: "Unfortunately the Labor government has moved too far to the right and has totally forgotten they were a party for the people. The reason this has happened is most of current federal MPs know no difference. They have received their education since the Reagan/Thatcher politics took centre stage and adopted Tony Blair's third way by embracing corporate capitalism. It is such a shame. The more the Liberals move to the ultra right, Labor fills the spot they vacated. Living in Canberra I find the Green members of our Assembly appalling. They are only interested in themselves and their careers and appeasing the Labor Party. I do, however, think Adam Bandt's address at the National Press Club was good and hopefully the Greens, with more independents, can break the stranglehold of the two-party system which has let us down so badly."

Sue reckons ours is not really a two-party system: "It is an interesting twist of language that three political parties is so uniformly referred to as a binary system. Neither the Liberals nor the Nationals make it by themselves. If the Greens replace the Coalition formed by the Liberals and the Nationals (whoops! almost said Country Party, but that would really have been a misnomer), then it will be more like a binary system. Let's be honest. Almost any group is going to be more relevant and appealing than Peter Dutton!"

Michael says: "Great article today about the Greens as the 'new opposition'. You could have added to AUKUS the Stage 3 tax cuts as matters that must infuriate the young voters. I am 74 but support the policies favoured by these young voters. I am not growing more conservative as I grow older. I think there would be a good few of us baby boomers who fear for the coming generations if things are not changed in their favour. I work in legal aid as a lawyer serving ACT youth in our Youth Law Centre. They are fabulous."

Allan, on the other hand, says: "The seemingly inevitable growing influence of the Greens in a future government is either good news or bad news, depending on your politics. Having seen the way it works here in the ACT over the past 10 years or so, it makes me very nervous. I'm a great believer in a strong two-party system with either of the two major parties having a clear mandate to implement their policies. The prospect of the Greens having the balance of power and even a place in the cabinet is very scary indeed."

James sees it differently: "I have never been convinced that a two-party system gives best benefit for the Australian voter, albeit that opting for splinter forces can sometimes turn out to be disastrous; the most recent example being Lidia Thorpe. Surely the whole country would now see her as undeserving of her stolen seat in parliament. On the other hand, independent teal candidates have shown voters there are shades to blue and red, and by favouring non-primary hues the voter can have greater say at the ballot box. In terms of colour, the Greens should concentrate on being green. They are needed in that capacity. Elsewhere they have shown irresponsibility in wider policies required for good government."

Garry doubts the Greens will gain enough momentum to be a true opposition: "The problem with Bandt is that he is getting older and he is white. Young voters will soon recognise this and that lessens his appeal. Renters may well vote Green but against this older voters, large numbers of whom have investment properties, will rally against the Greens and stop giving them preferences, which perhaps they do now as the second least worse choice, and go to the splinters."

Geriatric Dave says: "Thank you, Echidna for, finally, coming up with an insightful analysis of the political shift that years of negative gearing has forced. Of course Labor aren't going to do anything seriously about the housing crisis. For they, individually, are property owners sucking off that particular teat."