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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.'"
The chat bot really only needs to handle a few phrases...
"What a day, I'm beat"
"Turn the game on"
"When's dinner?"
"Bring me another beer!"
and
"If you don't start behaving right now, I'm turning this car around!"
#DeleteChrome
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.
Therapists have a lot of work to do.
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?
why can't Comcast make a working one? I manage our Comcast connections at over thirty locations, and I've never seen their online chat ever offer a useful solution.
There's a Black Mirror episode called Be Right Back exploring the concept. In general all episodes of this show are superbly done.
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.
More like Deadbot!
Kid's gonna have some things to work through, I think.
I simply do not understand the people that think making an AI "copy", whether it be programmed or "downloaded" is in any way a copy.
There is older tech that copies the way you look and sound, it is called a MOVIE CAMERA. But a movie of you is not you, even if it looks and sounds like you. Neither is any form of AI, no matter how similar it is to you.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I think he should have spent all that time visiting his dying father, instead of in front of a computer.
But that's just me. YMMV.
Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man's mind.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Dialectician. Archology.
To me it seems that he is just prolonging the grieving period. We live in a time where people think it is bad that we forget things. That we must have all the moments with people and things forever. That it is bad if you forget something.
I do not believe that is true. If you remember everything, you will not go on with your life. Forgetting things has worked for humanity for a LONG time and I am sure that there will have been studies as to why this is a good thing.
And by forgetting I do not mean you suddenly have no idea who people talk about, buy forgetting details and remember things that are important to us, even if they might be wrong.
That said, it is nice to see that Eliza is not dead yet. Just evolved. What we should do now is first have a person see how he does with the Turing test and then see how his bot does.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Before we know it, all the celebrities, all the politicians, all the billion/trillion/zillionaires will have their own versions of chatbot
In case you haven't noticed, they already do - but it's defective. It keeps contradicting itself on Twitter at 3 in the morning while munching cheeseburgers because twittering is easy, being president is hard.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
I read the original story and almost started crying, which would have been embarrassing for a 63 year old man at work.
I lost my father about a year ago, and it wasn't until after he died that I realized that I really should have been recording all of his stories while he was alive. He was a salesman and a preacher (same job different products), and could tell jokes and stories endlessly.
My Mother has taken my idea and is visiting what few of Dad's relatives that are left to get recordings of what they remember of his stories. Because of distances my grandchildren never knew my dad, and I really regret that. Maybe by collecting his stories from those who remember him we can keep some of that alive.
I enjoy the discussions of making a digital copy of ourselves to live forever, and the idea of 'is it me, or just a copy of me?' discussion/philosophy over some drinks. But I saw this article the other day and started reading it, and I found it creepy. It's a strange mixed bag of morbidness. If this wasn't someone dying, I think I would be ok with it, but the idea here just strikes me strangely. It reminds me of Neuromancer and the Finn, and a weird mix of being them, but not being them, and maybe at the same time knowing they are dead.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
With 7 billion living humans, dead ones who missed the chatbot boat, and more new humans on the way, it would be a good thing to consider the practicality and usefulness of 'chatbots'.
It is possible that very few lives are worth recording. Of course yours is. But all those others? What did your neighbor accomplish that merits sharing with future generations? Your boss? Sure they were sweet, generous, loving people ... like billions of others. But in what way were they special?
Some day we may be able to record the contents of a brain, possibly even reproduce its functionality. Is that the next step? Is it a wise thing to do for everyone?
We already have a lot of noise in our lives. We don't need more. Let the dead lie in peace. Give them the right to be forgotten.
...omphaloskepsis often...