Do not go gentle into that good night

[Secular Sanity]

How your digital self could 'live' on after you die

After you die, how do you fancy springing back to life in the form of a digital avatar?

Your digital ghost could jump onto Facebook and join in a light-hearted argument about Friends, or post Instagram updates reminiscing about that Italian road trip you took with an ex-lover.

Living a digital afterlife might sound strange - a possible episode of satirical TV show Black Mirror perhaps - but some start-ups are investing serious time and money in the concept.

Eternime, for example, plans to combine your online footprint - made up of everything you've ever posted on social media, your thoughts, smartphone pictures and so on - with artificial intelligence to create a digital version of yourself.

This digital representative could interact with your loved ones - and your descendants - long after you've died.

"Depending on the facts it has collected, the avatar will be able to offer anything from basic biographical data to being an engaging conversational partner," says Marius Ursache, Eternime's founder.

Eternime preserves your most important thoughts, stories and memories for eternity.

The Second Death?

Hmm…how 'bout a digital hitman? Now that would be an interesting occupation, wouldn’t it?  Um-yeah, could you kill off grandma once and for all?  She keeps interfering on my tinder app.  

How 'bout a ransom note?  We have your beloved's avatar.  We want five million dollars in unmarked bills.

[C C]

The Jor-El AI trope no longer just a perk for Superman. In the future, cultures that are into ancestor worship need not rely on ritual trance woo to consult the old folks for advice.

Just make sure you include the warts and all in the instructions of who you are, cousin Luke or sister-in-law Viola. Too much myopic idealization and your digital soul will especially be a shallow facade of your original flip-flopping gracious depth and iniquitous unpredictability.

Essentially one can become immortal for everybody else except one's self. No total upload or perfect psychological representation required for that. The latter being bereft of personal feeling or truly experiencing anything wouldn't matter to others, since when alive the outer behavior is all they ever accessed / interacted with anyway.

Gods have always been ideas, and famous humans have long underwent apotheosis via leaving behind detailed autobiographical literature or superficial caricatures of themselves in history books. Now the average person has a new means for joining the lesser deities of that pantheon -- but whose character traits, habits and works will still be lost or neglected in the sea of their greater numbers.

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