You need to start planning for immortality in the metaverse
Death is a field we rather leave untouched. Yet, it is death that touches us all.
It’s not a distant future, it’s our present reality
A wide variety of new developments can be observed that make use of these hopes, which are essentially as old as humanity, and yet come in a new guise.
What might have sounded like science fiction material only a short while ago is already a reality today with Kanye West gifting Kim Kardashian ahologram of her late father for her 40th birthday— something that everyone can achieve thanks to providers such as the Dutch company Here we Holo.
When we spoke to its CEO, Desmond Frencken, explained the core of this idea: “Being able to give a speech at your own funeral has been on my bucket list. Now we made it possible. It’s a very personal message and better than a film. You can stand there, the projection is so crisp and clear, as if it was you.”
There are also other forms of “digital resurrections,” such as a much-discussed example of a South Korean company using artificial intelligence to allow amother to meet her deceased daughter one last time in virtual reality. That way she was available to say a proper goodbye, an opportunity she hadn’t been granted in real life.
So the real question isn’t whether we’ll live on in the digital realm after our deaths, buthow…
Replicas or continuations of consciousness?
It seems that we want to remember our dead exactly the way we experiencedthem while they were alive — which includes the internet. But what do we want for our own afterlives?
Do we limit ourselves by trying to freeze ourselves for digital eternity? But aren’t we much more than avatars or bots? So will the real question be around what the limitations of AI in creating our digital souls are?
As we experiment with increasingly sophisticated methods of digitally bringing the dead back to life, there are both risks and benefits, and the question remains how we reconcile our offline and online selves after we’ve passed.
Some of us will never be content with interacting with a memorial page, speaking into a void that never responds. Others will rage against the dying light and build magical and monstrous manifestations of the afterlife, refusing to let the dead stay dead. We believe that we will need to find a balance between digital recollection and emotional release.
And we believe we should not let our future be dictated by technology — instead, we should develop technology for the future we want to have. And for the way we want to be remembered.
If you’re curious to know more about the digital transformation of death and get some practical tips on your own digital legacy, check out our talk atTNW2021. We’ll be joined by 150+ other great speakers who are experts on every facet of tech imaginable.
Story byStefanie Schillmöller and Charlotte Wiede
Stefanie and Charlotte met thanks to the metaverse and intend to be remembered for their trend research around death and dying. Until then,(show all)StefanieandCharlottemet thanks to the metaverse and intend to be remembered for their trend research around death and dying. Until then, they will be on a quest towards a society that embraces its finitude.
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