As we all know that losing someone close to us is one of the deepest wound we gather in our lifetimes. Roman Mazurenko was start-up entrepreneur and star of the Moscow Boheme before he died in a car accident. However, for his friends he is still alive, somehow. Because Roman is now a bot.
This Programmer Kept Talking To Her Friend After His Death Using AI
Losing someone close to us is one of the deepest wound we gather in our lifetimes. However, a late person leaves a lot more: a digital legacy from text messages, status updates and pictures.
But, simply think that if you were given a chance to talk to them again? What if you are able to touch the shadow of a person after he or she is late? However, some people may welcome to this concept with open arms, but, other might argue it and oppose the increasing interruption of technology in our daily lives.
Eugenia Kuyda is co-founder and head of Luka, it is an AI start-up developed in San Francisco, it creates chat bots that help users with the use of artificial intelligence (AI: Artificial Intelligence ) to make life easier. This AI expertise has been used to re-born the Russian programmer and entrepreneur, as Eugenia Kuyda leave her dead boyfriend Roman digitally resurrected – with astounding results.
In 2012, he founded the start-up Stampsy and followed three years later his good friend Eugenia Kuyda in the US. But, Stampsy did not have the desired success, Mazurenko doubted that it was exhausted, looking for a new orientation. At a home, he visits Moscow, November 2015, but unfortunately, he was hit by a car and died of his injuries.
The sadness in his circle of friends was huge, the question: How do we commemorate this free spirit, this dazzling personality? Kuyda had the idea to develop a novel-Bot, when she read old text messages that she had exchanged with him. Hence, she thought what if she would feed an artificial neural network with thousands of Romans chat texts that he had sent over the years to his friends? What if the bot learns how to write a novel?
On May 24, 2016, published the novel Kuyda-Bot on Facebook. Who wants to chat with him, can do this via the Luka app. By @Roman command, he is asked and responds with records that Mazurenko has actually used in his chats. The algorithm is geared to use of the digital chat archive of Mazurenko sentences that fit as well as possible in a conversation. Recently, he can not only select sets but also composed new.
This works surprisingly well, as many of his friends actually feel to write with her late friend. It helps them to overcome their grief. For some, it has become a place to talk about their problems. Some friends showed however disturbed by Kuyda’s project.
Both reactions are understandable. The idea to chat with an AI version of a deceased friend is equally creepy, fascinating and challenging. She throws according to a number of difficult issues.
Who actually determines via the digital legacy of a dead? Would he agree that his private thoughts and messages to individual people at a time can be read by a large public – set only in a new context And the impact on mourners actually positive or holds such a bot.
Eugenia Kuyda does not share these concerns. They developed the bot and he helped her to process the grief. The “Verge” -Journalist confided Kuyda that chatting with the Roman-Bot is what for them, such as “to send a message to heaven. For me, it’s more about to send a message in a bottle than to receive one”.
