Data will maintain aspects of ourselves after our biological body is dead.
Somnium Space is a metaverse platform and live forever service. Its Live Forever mode creates a digital avatar of users based on information collected when interacting in the Somnium Space through VR headsets, controllers, and soon, full-bodied haptic suits with motion capture and biometric monitoring. Data on facial expression, body language, conversations, voice, character traits, and gait, allows the avatar to walk, talk and react with descendants and friends who can interact with the avatar of their deceased loved one. Initially, death bots and private chatbots were based on data supported by dead individuals but Somnium Space goes one step further with a moving full-body avatar.
Somnium CEO Artur Sychov created the project after his father died from an aggressive form of cancer. Faced with the prospect of his children not knowing their grandfather, Sychov came up with the Live Forever feature in Somnium Space. In an interview with Maxwell Strachan for Vice he talks about the prospect of generations past sharing physical and autobiographical data for future generations:
“Literally, if I die — and I have this data collected — people can come or my kids, they can come in, and they can have a conversation with my avatar, with my movements, with my voice,”
Issues about data protection as well as ethical concerns are raised whenever digital technology dreams of an afterlife. Sychov is adamant that no data is collected or sold but he hasn’t thought through the ethics yet because Somnium Space doesn’t fully roll out until next year.
What are the ethics of self-representation if an idealized and hence, fictive version of ourselves is created? Will family members of the diseased have the right or not to pull the plug on their dead loved one’s avatar? And will we ever learn to let go if we can still communicate with our past loved ones on our smartphones? These questions pose a considerable challenge to human sociality and challenge how we communicate and define ourselves as well as impact how we engage with death, remembrance, and legacy.
Ginger Liu is the founder of Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Ph.D. practice research student in photography and artificial intelligence, and an author, writer, artist, and filmmaker.
