Latest news with #StoryFile
New York Post
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Post
An AI version of you could live forever — but who would ‘you' really be?
Living forever was once the stuff of sci-fi fantasy and Oasis song lyrics. No more. A digital recreation of you with no expiration date can be created for those who possess the money and desire. Tech entrepreneurs are happily building AI-powered versions of human beings after their flesh and organs give way to reality. For the most part, it's been embraced by people who are aging or ill and want to leave versions of themselves behind after they pass away, rather than being solely driven by vanity. Advertisement For some, even the artificial can bring a sense of closure. A New York widow felt relief when her dead husband made clear, via AI, that he was not in hell. And a German woman who took solace in a version of her deceased mom finding out she was a grandmother. 10 In the course of shooting this video, which will live beyond the physical life of the subject, family members are on hand to ask questions and participate in the high-tech shoot., StoryFile Advertisement 10 At the high-end, creating the videos resembles a Hollywood production. Courtesy of Authentic Interactions Beyond providing comfort for his children and grandchildren after he's gone, Michael Staenberg, a 73-year-old high-net-worth real estate developer in St. Louis, is excited to leave behind a legacy of himself that could inspire others forever. 'I want to provide future generations with the opportunity to ask me how I lived and how I succeeded,' he told The Post, adding that he is working with a tech company called StoryFile that offers elaborate set-ups worthy of Hollywood productions — with the results to match. 'Maybe I can be a mentor. That is what excites me.' Advertisement 10 Real estate developer Michael Staenberg is hoping that people will be inspired by him long after he is deceased. Courtesy of Michael Staenberg However, such technology, when used politically and without advance permission of the deceased, also generates controversy. For instance, Joaquin Oliver, one of 17 people killed in the Parkland, Florida, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting of 2018, spoke again this week via artificial intelligence. Jim Acosta, the former chief White House Correspondent of CNN, interviewed the AI iteration of Oliver, who was gunned down at age 17, on Monday night. Advertisement Produced with the blessing of father Manuel Oliver, the computer animated face of Joaquin spoke in a voice which lacked normal intonations of the living but answered questions clearly. Referring to gun violence, he said, 'It's important to talk about these issues so we can create a safer future for everyone.' 10 Jim Acosta, formerly of CNN, generated controversy when he interviewed the AI version of a high school shooting victim who died in 2018. The Jim Acosta Show 10 Joaquin Oliver, who was tragically killed during the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting, answered questions in AI form for Acosta, raising questions of politicization and ethics. The Jim Acosta Show There have been questions about the impact of using an AI version of Oliver to comment on gun violence. 'This use of AI takes advantage of the circumstance,' Daniel Chapin, founder and national director of the Uvalde Foundation for Kids, told The Post. '[It] takes away the human reality of a very real event. It gets watered down.' Questions also loom about the ethics of computer-driven Oliver answering questions the real Oliver could not have considered. 'This interview style can't possibly represent what this child wants to say in any reasonable way,' Hamy Farid, a Berkley University professor who focuses on digital forensics, told the Washington Post. 'There are plenty of opportunities to use real victims . . . without resorting to this sort of stunt.' Still, the technology is being widely embraced. Advertisement At best, it works like this: The person who will become an AI avatar is interviewed and filmed while still alive. They provide answers to a wide range of questions which form the basis of an AI self. After the fact, an AI version of the person is created post-death, with voicemails, text messages, recordings and videos from everyday life added in to help create the everlasting version. The artificial intelligence then draws on this database and has the ability to interpret it and discuss topics — even ones which were not included in the source material, so the dead can interact with the living. 10 Jason Gowin, who was diagnosed with cancer, and his wife hope that AI versions of themselves will bring comfort to their children after they are deceased. Courtesy of Jason Gowin Advertisement Jason Gowin, a Pennsylvania-based comedian and co-host of a podcast called The Parent's Lounge, who's battling colon cancer is creating an AI version of himself to leave behind for his three children. 'For weddings and graduations and birthdays, my children will be able to speak with me,' Gowin told The Post. His wife, who suffered a stroke after childbirth and has recovered, is creating an AI version of herself as well. 'Those messages are already in there. This is something that my son has actually helped us build. He calls [the AI version of Gowin] Robo Dad.' For the moment, Gowin, working with a West Coast company called You, Only Virtual, is all audio, but he is expecting video to be available over the course of the next six months or so. Advertisement And that will be handy, he said, 'When my kids are older and they want to have a deep conversation with Robo Dad.' You, Only Virtual charges $20 per month when customers choose to voice chat with their loved ones (otherwise, there is no fee for a stagnant AI), and offers a text-based service for free. 10 Justin Harrison, who heads up You, Only Virtual, with his mother before her death. Together, they created an AI version of her for after she was gone. Courtesy of Justin Harrison Justin Harrison, who heads up You, Only Virtual, came up with the technology when his mother was dying. Advertisement 'My mom is very preserved digitally,' Harrison told The Post. 'She was alive when we were building this. She got to meet herself digitally and that was a very cool experience.' While Harrison's mother knew that she would be getting the opportunity to sort of live on with her son, for some it also happens after the fact, unbeknownst to them. Unable to summon the dead, relatives and friends turn to tech and do the next best thing. While there are those who question the ethics of reanimating a person who never saw it coming, Harrison has no such reservations. 'It's not illegal and I equate it to taking a letter for the building of a memory book,' he said. 'My mom's gone. I'm here surviving in the world, making do without her. Our concern is with people who are still on Earth and still living.' 10 Alex Quinn, CEO of Authentic Interactions, the parent company of StoryFile, is aiming to produce state of the art AI renditions of people. Courtesy of Alex Quinn Taking the concept further, Alex Quinn is CEO of Authentic Interactions, the parent company of StoryFile, which uses cutting edge techniques and charges fees that can hit six figures. The next generation of their technology, he told The Post, will make conversations with the deceased seem as natural as a call on Zoom or FaceTime. In order to get there, StoryFile's sessions feature lights, camera, producer, green screen, family members often in the room, the voicing of phrases sure to come up — such as, 'I love you, too' and 'I don't have an answer for that right now' — and several hundred questions asked of the subject. They might pertain to childhood recollections, landmark moments in life and how the person would respond to events likely to happen in the future. 10 Authentic interactions and great stories are among the goals of StoryFile's AI productions. Courtesy of Authentic Interactions As for what might have been discussed on question 1,001, that is where AI shines. 'Through the source material, you can make it sound and feel like a real conversation, to the extent that you've taken enough information to answer the question,' said Quinn. 'But if you ask what the person thought of today's Wall Street Journal, that's obviously not in the reference data. 'Then you're looking at probabilistic [as in predictive] language models to produce those outputs. Our job is to make it as authentic as possible.' 10 It is common for the videos to employ green screens and high tech equipment. In accordance with its mission to preserve the future, StoryFile has also partnered with the National Medal of Honor Museum in Arlington, Texas, to launch 'The Virtual Recipient' an AI-powered interactive exhibit that allows visitors to engage in lifelike conversations with five Vietnam War Medal of Honor recipients. The exhibit enables guests to ask questions and receive authentic, pre-recorded video responses from: Jack Jacobs, Melvin Morris, Pat Brady, Tommy Norris, and Paris Davis, creating a personal and immersive experience. The point of it all is to leave a mark when you leave the earth. 'People seek emotional comfort after someone passes,' said Quinn. 'But, for me, it might be a little less about the emotional comfort and more about preserving the stories and memories that otherwise would assuredly be lost. No one wants to be forgotten; no matter who you are.'
Daily Mail
28-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Star Trek legend William Shatner discovers powerful new way to live forever
A groundbreaking program has now made it possible to preserve your life stories and wisdom, allowing you to speak to loved ones decades into the future. StoryFile, an innovative AI company, has developed lifelike, interactive 3D avatars that allow people to 'live on' after death, sharing memories and answering questions in the same natural and conversational manner of a real person. Individuals like philanthropist Michael Staenberg, 71, and Star Trek star William Shatner, 94, have used StoryFile to immortalize both their experiences and personalities. Staenberg, a property developer and philanthropist who has given away more than $850 million, said: 'I hope to pass my knowledge on, and the good I've created.' The technology captures video interviews, transforming them into hologram-style avatars that use generative AI, similar to ChatGPT, to respond dynamically to questions. StoryFile's avatars have been employed in museums since 2021 to preserve the voices of historical figures like WWII veterans and Holocaust survivors, and by terminally ill individuals to connect with family after death. Until now, the company has offered a premium service costing tens of thousands of dollars, but a new, affordable app launching this summer will allow everyday people to record their own AI avatars for less than the cost of a monthly cellphone plan. Staenberg added that he'd like to imagine other business people and family members still having a chance to interact with him 30 years from now. 'It's important to get my version so the details aren't forgotten. I've had quite a crazy life, so I'd have a lot of stories that I don't want people to forget,' Staenberg said. More than 2,000 users have used the previous version. However, the new Storyfile app will allow users to interview themselves on video and create an intelligent avatar they can keep adding chapters to as they answer more questions about their lives. Previously, the Storyfile avatars could understand the intent of people talking to them, but could only respond with pre-recorded video answers. Storyfile's newer AI avatars will be able to generate an answer based on the persona from the recorded interviews, and it will be able to approximate an answer to any question. The company has gotten a huge number of daily queries from people who have been diagnosed with terminal illness and who hope to preserve their legacy in an avatar. Storyfile CEO Alex Quinn said: 'Every day we'll get very sad and heart-wrenching emails, saying things like "My son was just diagnosed with terminal cancer."' Others have expressed fear over their parents aging, asking for a way to keep their memories intact for the future. Quinn added that Storyfile would never be able to accommodate all those requests if they had to send their video production team to all of those customers. The solution was to make a 'DIY' version, where people record their own answers to an AI 'interviewer' using the app - answering questions on everything from their career to their family to their tastes in food. The app will come with 'permanent cold storage' so that avatars remain safe once recorded, and users can keep adding new video and new information. Quinn admitted that because Storyfile avatars use generative AI there is a possibility it could initially say 'crazy' stuff, but noted that the replica of the person will become more and more realistic the more users speak to the program. 'It's almost like an AI FaceTime where you're interviewed by an AI interviewer, and it's able to probe and go deep on certain topics,' the CEO said. 'If you've got a couple days, or you've got free time, and you want to understand your question every now and then, you're just going to keep on adding to your digital memories, and it's going to get more and more sophisticated, more and more personalized,' he continued. Tech pioneers such as inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil have already used AI to recreate lost relatives. Kurzweil created a 'dad bot' based on information about his father Fred in 2016. The 'Fredbot' could converse with Kurzweil, revealing that what his father loved about topics like gardening. It even remembered his father's belief that the meaning of life was love. 'I actually had a conversation with him, which felt a lot like talking to him,' Kurzweil told Rolling Stone Magazine in 2023. He believed that some form of his dad bot AI would be released to the public one day, enabling everyone to stay in touch with their dead relatives from beyond the grave. 'We'll be able to actually create something like a large language model that really represents somebody else by having enough information,' he predicted.
Indian Express
15-06-2025
- Indian Express
From ‘grief bots' to 3D avatars: How startups are using AI to simulate the dead
The latest and possibly most controversial use case for generative AI is here. A new wave of startups are creating so-called 'grief bots' or 'dead bots' that allow people to interact with AI representations of their deceased loved ones. These bots are essentially large language models (LLMs), fine-tuned to generate responses that mimic the speech and personality of the deceased individual. They are, in turn, part of a larger field known as 'grief tech' which includes technology ranging from chatbots to more realistic 3D avatars of people who have died. Project December, Story File, and You, Only Virtual are a few of the startups that are focused on developing AI tools to help users grieve and cope with the loss of a partner, friend, or family member. While these AI simulations may offer some people a sense of closure, they also raise serious concerns. Despite being trained to resemble real individuals, interactions with AI bots and avatars can still be quite unpredictable and unsettling for many. 'We are talking about a very specific group of users, they are in a very vulnerable state. They are looking for some closure but the opposite can happen,' Hans Block, a film director, said in an interview that is part of a recent documentary called Eternal, You. 'Some of the services are using a lot of private data. For example, the practice of storing all the messages that a person has sent to another person in order to create how a person is speaking in a way,' Block added. Justin Harrison, the founder and CEO of You, Only Virtual, offered a different perspective. Harrison's startup creates AI-powered audio versions of people called Versonas that users can call and have conversations with. The very first Versona he created using AI was based on his own mother after she was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. 'This is one of the many problems that we are meant to solve. There are moments when only your mom or only your dad can make you feel better. They are the only ones who can say that right thing in the way that they would say it to you. And that's an unquantifiable help,' Harrison told BBC in an interview. He further envisions Versonas being integrated with realistic robots in the future. Grief bots are also evolving beyond text and audio to become more lifelike and interactive. StoryFile works with its users to create AI-powered video avatars of deceased loved ones that allow for conversations resembling a Zoom call. A user whose father was diagnosed with a terminal illness signed up for StoryFile's service. The company sat down with the father and had him repeat stock phrases such as 'Hi', 'I love you, too', 'Bye for now', and 'I don't have an answer for that right now' for when the AI avatar is unable to generate a suitable response to the user's query, according to a report by The New York Times. StoryFile also makes interactive AI-generated videos for museums and other art foundations. Going forward, the startup reportedly has plans to develop an AI app that lets users themselves create an avatar of a person by uploading their emails, social media posts, and other background information.
New York Times
30-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Optimization Culture Comes for Grief
An older Korean man named Mr. Lee, dressed in a blazer and slacks, clutches the arms of his chair and leans toward his wife. 'Sweetheart, it's me,' he says. 'It's been a long time.' 'I never expected this would happen to me,' she replies through tears. 'I'm so happy right now.' Mr. Lee is dead. His widow is speaking to an A.I.-powered likeness of him projected onto a wall. 'Please, never forget that I'm always with you,' the projection says. 'Stay healthy until we meet again.' This conversation was filmed as part of a promotional campaign for Re;memory, an artificial intelligence tool created by the Korean start-up DeepBrain AI, which offers professional-grade studio and green-screen recording (as well as relatively inexpensive ways of self-recording) to create lifelike representations of the dead. It's part of a growing market of A.I. products that promise users an experience that closely approximates the impossible: communicating and even "reuniting' with the deceased. Some of the representations — like those offered by HereAfter AI and StoryFile, which also frames its services as being of historical value — can be programmed with the person's memories and voices to produce realistic holograms or chatbots with which family members or others can converse. The desire to bridge life and death is innately human. For millenniums, religion and mysticism have offered pathways for this — blurring the lines of logic in favor of the belief in eternal life. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
