Slashdot Mirror
Dadbot: How a Son Made a Chatbot of His Dying Dad (www.cbc.ca)
theodp writes: In A Son's Race to Give His Dying Father Artificial Immortality (Warning: may be paywalled; alternate source), James Vlahos recounts his efforts to turn the story of his father's life -- as told by his 80-year-old Dad in his final months after being diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer -- into what Vlahos calls "a Dadbot -- a chatbot that emulates not a children's toy but the very real man who is my father." Given the limits of tech at the time (2016) and his own inexperience as a programmer, Vlahos recognized that the bot would never be more than a shadow of his real dad, but hoped to get the bot to communicate in his father's distinctive manner and convey at least some sense of his personality. Of the first time he demoed the bot for his parents, Vlahos writes: "Emboldened, I bring up something that has preoccupied me for months. 'This is a leading question, but answer it honestly,' I say, fumbling for words. 'Does it give you any comfort, or perhaps none -- the idea that whenever it is that you shed this mortal coil, that there is something that can help tell your stories and knows your history?' My dad looks off. When he answers, he sounds wearier than he did moments before. 'I know all of this shit,' he says, dismissing the compendium of facts stored in the Dadbot with a little wave. But he does take comfort in knowing that the Dadbot will share them with others. 'My family, particularly. And the grandkids, who won't know any of this stuff.' He's got seven of them, including my sons, Jonah and Zeke, all of whom call him Papou, the Greek term for grandfather. 'So this is great,' my dad says. 'I very much appreciate it.'"
When you speak to a person, it's a low bandwidth transfer. It doesn't really tell you how they feel or all the detail of what they mean.
As you interact with people over time, you build up a model of them. That model runs in YOUR brain. Part of *them* is actually running in *you*. As they speak that fires the model and its the model that lets you understand them from all the context, not the few words they speak.
As they grow old, they tire, they speak less, and your model of them fills in more of the detail. They fade, the model of them in you grows.
Until they pass, and then it's all model and no dad. He's still there, just not running on its main core.
I'm sure many people notice that as they grow older, they sound like their dads, but its also part that the model of their dad becomes more like them. It's a living model, not a static snapshot.
You see, you are your dad. The best model you can make is to remember him, run that model, it's far more than words, it's smiles and confusion, and microcues and anger, and pride, etc etc.. the words to someone else do not trigger those memory. They're just words.
I had a daughter recently, I showed her to my dad, he said "it has a face only a mother could love" with a big smile on his face. But he's just an ashes in an urn, that's just the bit of him that runs in me.
Yeah, as opposed to six months later (2017), we now have fully self-aware clone AI and replacement bodies...
Holy fuck what is it with this nerd narrative of " the limits of tech at the time ", as if we're on a hyper-boosted Star Trek technology cycle?
While this strikes me as an odd way to go about capturing those experiences that our elders have went through, but have not shared for one reason or another, that does not matter.
If we allow our elders to pass away, or become unable to communicate before we ask them to share what they think are the important lessons they have learned, or have shared the important memories they can recall, they will be lost forever.
Society will suffer if we don't learn from the experiences of our elders.