The Digital Afterlife of Grief: Recent Episodes
ginger liu
The Digital Afterlife of Grief is where Technology, Arts, Entertainment, Science, and Psychology disrupt how we deal with death in the digital world.
Your podcast host, Ginger Liu, is the American British founder of Ginger Media & Entertainment and a Ph.D. researcher in Artificial Intelligence and Visual Arts. Over the next months, we will be interviewing experts in the death tech industry. Leaders and researchers in AI, technology, health, startups, science, historians, and the creative and entertainment world. HTTP://www.gliumedia.com @gingerliu
The grieftech industry thinks so...
The death tech industry is a lucrative business worth $126B. Companies like StoryFile, Replika, and Hereafter AI provide different platforms that service legacy creation and by extension service our grief.
Michael Bommer is the latest person to create a digital replica of him likeness which will interact with his family after he has passed away. Bommer, a German startup engineer, has terminal cancer. He collaborated with California-based AI legacy startup Eternos. life, one of the latest platforms in the digital afterlife space, or so I thought. The collaboration made global news and raised ongoing questions about the ethical implications of using big tech to create and manage the afterlife.
Ginger Liu is the founder of Hollywood’s Ginger Media & Entertainment, a researcher and journalist in artificial intelligence and visual arts media — specifically grief tech, digital afterlife, AI, death and mourning practices, AI and photography, biometrics, security, and policy, and an author, writer, artist photographer, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast — The Digital Afterlife of Grief.
It’s a win-win for the estates of some of Hollywood’s biggest 20th-century stars while the Digital Replica Act aims to prevent AI-generated replicas of artists without prior consent.
Hollywood Stars Have New IP Life with AISAG-AFTRA Thanks California AI Artist Protection Legislation
Hollywood Teams With Holocaust Museum L.A. to Launch Augmented-Reality APP
AI Death Tech Company Eternos Creates Digital Replicas of the Dying
No Opt Out for Meta Artists in Latin America but Brazil Fights Back
AI COPIED Act Would Protect Artists and Journalists' Content
Video Platforms Enforce AI Content Labeling
Sony Pictures CEO Aims to Cut Costs with AI
Artists Protect Work from Generative AI Theft
Jackie Chan is the Latest Actor to get AI De-Aged Treatment
Fashion Brand Mango Creates Campaign with AI
CNN Will Layoff 100 Staffers to be Replaced by AI
Research Finds Generative AI Supports Creativity but Hinders Originality
Ginger Liu is the founder of Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Writer/Researcher in artificial intelligence and visual arts media — specifically Hollywood, death tech, digital afterlife, AI death and grief practices, AI photography, entertainment, security, and policy, and an author, writer, artist photographer, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast — The Digital Afterlife of Grief.
Ginger Liu is a writer who covers the latest developments in artificial intelligence, entertainment, and art.
(References available on original and on request)
The concept of a digital afterlife, the digital extension of life after physical death challenges the notion that death is final. The digital afterlife is not denying that the dead are dead but that they are still part of our lives.
The commercial death tech industry is a profit-seeking industry, using digital remains for the monetization of the digital afterlife of users, such as the capitalization of human remains, which requires the payment of subscription fees by the bereaved or suffering a second loss, while creating a culture of ongoing grief where the bereaved never move on from death, which may be detrimental to the grieving process.
Ginger Liu is the founder of Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Writer/Researcher in artificial intelligence and visual arts media — specifically Hollywood, death tech, digital afterlife, AI death and grief practices, AI photography, entertainment, security, and policy, and an author, writer, artist photographer, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast — The Digital Afterlife of Grief.
Ginger Liu is a writer who covers the latest developments in artificial intelligence, entertainment, and art.
Hollywood streaming wars affect jobs, and there are calls for more AI legislation from Scarlett Johannson and data protection legislation for the AI death tech industry.
Legislation that protects Hollywood creatives, artists, and the deceased is an ongoing battle as industries across states and countries try, and come to an agreement with government agencies.
Ginger Liu is the founder of Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Writer/Researcher in artificial intelligence and visual arts media — specifically Hollywood, death tech, digital afterlife, AI death and grief practices, AI photography, entertainment, security, and policy, and an author, writer, artist photographer, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast — The Digital Afterlife of Grief.
Ginger Liu is a writer who covers the latest developments in artificial intelligence, entertainment, and art.
AI creates the impossible as real, giving animated photographs of the dead, imaginative and emotional power, and the desire to see our dead relatives return to the living.
With digital networks and AI, there is a shift in identity once the person has died and for those left behind to mourn. Introducing the deceased into the grieving process means that digital identity is often co-constructed.
The shift is in who controls the grieving process. Whereas Facebook group pages are created by a human user, such as a family member or friend who posted memories in the form of images, videos, and text, AI death tech companies are directing humans to a formula of identical posthumous identity making, a one size fits all created by small data sets and standardized questions, therefore controlling posthumous digital identity.
Images: https://medium.com/technology-hits/creating-an-ai-photorealistic-digital-afterlife-2d7accb5e40a
Ginger Liu is the founder of Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Writer/Researcher in artificial intelligence and visual arts media — specifically Hollywood, death tech, digital afterlife, AI death and grief practices, AI photography, entertainment, security, and policy, and an author, writer, artist photographer, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast — The Digital Afterlife of Grief.
Ginger Liu is a writer who covers the latest developments in artificial intelligence, entertainment, and art.
The link between Victorian portraiture and AI death tech.
Looking at AI death tech platforms in context with Victorian post-mortem photography and attaining the sitter’s essence in portraiture, we can see a link between technology, consumerism, and society’s view on death and bereavement.
Startups working in the death tech or grief tech industry have designed different approaches that enable users to communicate with the dead, via text, video, audio, or photorealist avatars. The technology represents a recent shift from photography to artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool for remembering the deceased.
Ginger Liu is the founder of Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Ph.D. Researcher in artificial intelligence and visual arts media — specifically death tech, digital afterlife, AI death and grief practices, AI photography, entertainment, security, and policy, and an author, writer, artist photographer, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast — The Digital Afterlife of Grief.
Ginger Liu is a writer who covers the latest developments in artificial intelligence, entertainment, and art.
Historically, portrait photography has been a medium for capturing a person’s external likeness. Essence is a term that was borrowed from portrait painting. Essence adds an extra layer of meaning to the image, something internal. In the case of photography, the photographer aims to capture something intangible that reveals their unique personality and identity. The notion of essence then provides a philosophical framework for examining whether photorealistic generative artificial intelligence personas can possess human essence and offer something that captures the essence of the subject’s experience, emotions, and moral agency in the context of AI personas.
Ginger Liu is the founder of Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Ph.D. Researcher in artificial intelligence and visual arts media — specifically death tech, digital afterlife, AI death and grief practices, AI photography, entertainment, security, and policy, and an author, writer, artist photographer, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast — The Digital Afterlife of Grief.
Ginger Liu is a writer who covers the latest developments in artificial intelligence, entertainment, and art.
For the last few years, I have been writing about grief and digital afterlife technology and the companies that create photorealistic digital twins, chatbots, synthetic voices, AI video legacies, and holograms. The entertainment industry has been a driver of innovation, creating digital personas of Tupak Shakur and ABBA. In only the last few weeks, Elvis, Edith Piaf, and Jimmy Stewart have been resurrected or de-aged for entertainment. Harrison Ford was de-aged by 40 years for his role as Indiana Jones in last year’s Indian Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
Ginger Liu is the founder of Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Ph.D. Researcher in artificial intelligence and visual arts media — specifically death tech, digital afterlife, AI death and grief practices, AI photography, entertainment, security, and policy, and an author, writer, artist photographer, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast — The Digital Afterlife of Grief.
Rise of the Griefbot
Grief tech is changing the way we communicate with our deceased loved ones and how we cope with their passing. Our digital footprint, such as texts, photos, videos, emails, and social media accounts keeps us connected to the people close to us and worldwide. AI voice cloning creates digital replicas of a human voice by analyzing and mimicking speech patterns such as accent, tone, and pitch.
AI industry growth exceeded $40 billion in the US in 2022 and is estimated to reach $1.3 trillion over the next decade. According to a recent report, the Chatbots for Mental Health and Therapy Market will be worth $1.71 Bn by 2031. These offer support, direction, and assistance for mental health issues, including grief. One of the major health issues is the increased frequency of mental disease. It’s estimated that 1 in 4 adults and 1 in 10 children experience mental health issues yearly.
Ginger Liu is the founder of Hollywood’s Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Ph.D. Researcher in artificial intelligence and visual arts media — specifically grief tech, digital afterlife, AI, death and mourning practices, AI and photography, biometrics, security, and policy, and an author, writer, artist photographer, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast — The Digital Afterlife of Grief.
Meta's New Digital Afterlife for the Dead and the Aging Challenge.
When my mother was in the final stages of dementia, I rarely took photographs or videos of her because I didn’t want to document the evidence of her living with dementia. Documenting her demise was something I struggled with as an artist-photographer who was used to taking and sharing images daily.
The thought of losing her forever made me obsessed with capturing her essence. But what is essence? Words like soul, aura, air, and core are familiar terms when describing that unique trait that a loved one has. For my mother, it was her laugh and the cheeky and mischievous look she gave. Dementia never robbed this essence from her, and one could be fooled that she wasn’t suffering from this debilitating illness at all.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse platform could change how we communicate with our deceased loved ones. Death and the digital afterlife will prove to be a lucrative venture for Zuckerberg because it is predicted that Facebook will have more dead people than alive by 2100, an incredible 4.9 billion. Providing a fee-based service that can communicate with these dead is a savvy business decision.
Mindbank Ai creates a digital twin from the information users feed into the platform with a chat interface and learning algorithms.
Research on the ethics of deathbots suggests that there are pros and cons to using AI griefbots to support the grieving process. I would add that how we deal with grief is different for everyone and depends on how the deceased died, our relationship with the deceased, and our own coping mechanisms. Generative AI tools for creatives describe the technology as a collaborative tool and this term is well suited to describe how AI bots will be used for people with mental health issues that include grief.
What if this data is found online and copied and used for something else you have no control over? It doesn’t matter for those who are dead, but it will cause a lot of heartache for the family members left behind.
Ginger Liu is the founder of Hollywood’s Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Ph.D. Researcher in artificial intelligence and visual arts media — grief tech, digital afterlife, AI, death and mourning practices, AI and photography, biometrics, security, and policy, and an author, writer, artist photographer, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast — The Digital Afterlife of Grief.
After more than a year of turmoil from artists protecting their work from generative AI platforms, with some going to court over copyright violations, a new open letter was signed by, no doubt, a different group of artists who use generative AI in their workflow. But it’s not all praise for the platforms because a group of well-known authors is suing Meta and OpenAI for copyright infringement. Elsewhere, big-name actors are protecting and monetizing their AI likeness, and AI-generated artwork can’t be copyrighted…yet.
Newsom Signs Executive Order to Rein in AI
Directors Tim Burton and Guillermo del Toro Against AI
US Rejects AI Copyright For First Midjourney Art Winner
AI Altered Content in Political Ads Require Discloser
Artists Defend Generative AI in Open Letter
Museum Exhibition Created by ChatGPT
Google Launches AI Digital Futures Project
Authors Sue OpenAI and Meta For Copyright Infringement
Actors Protect Their AI Likeness With Metaphysic Pro
Amazon Uses Generative AI to Write Sales Listings
Ginger Liu is the founder of Hollywood’s Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Ph.D. Researcher in artificial intelligence and visual arts media — specifically grief tech, digital afterlife, AI, death and mourning practices, AI and photography, biometrics, security, and policy, and an author, writer, artist photographer, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast — The Digital Afterlife of Grief.
The week in Generative AI news is heavy on copyright protection and I sense there’s more backlash on the way as industries get to grip with the true value and purpose of artificial intelligence. It’s not all angst though because AI is being used in tracking wildlife in order to prevent biodiversity depletion.
Judge Finds AI-Created-Art Isn’t Copyrightable
Open AI Tools Effective in Content Moderation
New York Times Bans Content from Training AI Models
AP Develop Guidelines for Use of AI in Newsrooms
AI Identifies Dozens of Wildlife Species
Photo Agencies Demand AI Copyright Protection in Open Letter
Universal Music Group and Youtube Collaborate for Emerging AI Initiative
How AI is Transforming Portrait Photography Studios
James Dean Stars in New Film with the Help of AI
Parity for Women in Movies Has Stalled
Ginger Liu is the founder of Hollywood’s Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Ph.D. Researcher in artificial intelligence and visual arts media — specifically grief tech, digital afterlife, AI, death and mourning practices, AI and photography, biometrics, security, and policy, and an author, writer, artist photographer, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast — The Digital Afterlife of Grief.
Generative AI News Headlines
Disney creates AI task force
Google disrupts publishers’ copyright
Zoom caught using customer data
Dungeons & Dragons bans AI-generated art
AI Companies Commit to New Safety Measures for Biden
PhotoGuard Developed to Protect Against AI Image Manipulation
Documentary Filmmakers Cautious About Use of AI
Itseez3D Releases Avatar SDK Deep Fake Detector
Kickstarter Projects Require Generative AI Disclosure
Latest Gartner Survey Finds Generative AI is a Risk for Businesses
Allen Ginsberg’s Poetry Recreated with Artificial Intelligence
Ginger Liu is the founder of Hollywood’s Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Ph.D. Researcher in artificial intelligence and visual arts media — specifically grief tech, digital afterlife, AI, death and mourning practices, AI and photography, biometrics, security, and policy, and an author, writer, artist photographer, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast — The Digital Afterlife of Grief.
The evolution of technology has shaped the way we grieve, from the early days of photography, which brought images of our loved ones into our homes, to Facebook Memorial pages that serve as spaces for remembrance. Incorporating AI into the grieving process seems like a natural progression. Adding a layer of interaction can be comforting, especially during the initial stages of loss. For those who missed a chance to say goodbye, griefbots can offer closure.
There are valid concerns about their impact on the healing process. As we continue to use this technology and form strong emotional bonds with digital personas, there is a risk of anthropomorphizing AI replicas, confusing them with real people, and developing unhealthy attachments.
As we jump into an AI-driven future, the stories, memories, and voices of the past continue to resonate within the algorithms of our digital world. Whatever technology we use, ultimately the essence of human connection and the significance of genuine memories remain central to human agency.
Ginger Liu is the founder of Hollywood’s Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Ph.D. Researcher in artificial intelligence and visual arts media — specifically grief tech, digital afterlife, AI, death and mourning practices, AI, and photography. Education, research, and policy. Entrepreneur, author, writer, artist photographer, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast — The Digital Afterlife of Grief.
The latest headlines in Generative AI by Ginger Liu
Big Tech Moves Towards Enhancing the Safety of AI Technology
In a significant move towards enhancing safety protocols for AI technology, big tech companies including OpenAI, Google (Alphabet), and Meta Platforms, have pledged their support to the White House AI safety bill. Tech companies have committed to adopting specific measures, such as watermarking AI-generated content, as announced by President Biden on Friday during a White House event. President Biden acknowledged the importance of these commitments and considered them to be a promising step forward in challenging and securing AI-created content. However, he also emphasized that collective efforts are needed to address the challenges and potential risks associated with AI.
Apple is conducting trials of its generative AI system called Apple GPT. Taking inspiration from other AI-based platforms such as ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, Apple has constructed its framework for developing large language models. Though the company has made significant progress in developing AI tools, it has not finalized a plan for introducing this technology to the public.
Meta is expanding its generative AI capabilities with a new tool called CM3leon or Cameleon which can recognize both text and image with seamless image-to-text and text-to-image generation. Unlike current AI systems that specialize in generating images or text, CM3leon bridges this gap by integrating both capabilities into a single platform. The convergence of image and text generation has been challenging for AI developers, which makes Meta’s new platform an exciting new development. While the release date for CM3leon to the public remains undisclosed, its potential implications are immense.
Journalism is going through a significant transformation because of AI technology like ChatGPT. Publishers like The New York Times, the Washington Post, and News Corp are in discussions with Google about the integration of AI tools to support journalists in their news article writing. These tools are designed to give prompts for generating headlines and story ideas but the emphasis is on using AI as a collaborative tool rather than a replacement of human journalists. This comes after the recent announcement of a partnership between the Associated Press and OpenAI. Despite the big news agencies being on board with AI development, many news outlets remain cautious. There are legitimate concerns about the publishing of incorrect information and the challenge of distinguishing between content created by humans and AI.
Open AI CEO Sam Altman has introduced a new cryptocurrency venture called Worldcoin, designed as a payout from its AI project, World ID. The digital passport verifies the authenticity of individuals as real humans and not AI bots. To get your hands on a World ID, you need to participate in an in-person iris scan using Worldcoin’s specialized device called the Orb. The iris scan is a silver ball the size of a bowling ball which confirms a person’s human identity and then generates their unique World ID. Worldcoin was developed by San Francisco and Berlin company, Tools for Humanity. During its beta phase, the project has grown to 2 million individual users. After its official launch, Worldcoin aims to expand to 35 cities across 20 countries. As an added incentive, users who sign up in select countries will be rewarded with Worldcoin’s proprietary cryptocurrency token, WLD.
Ginger Liu is the founder of Hollywood’s Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Ph.D. Researcher in artificial intelligence and visual arts media — specifically grief tech, digital afterlife, AI, death and mourning practices, AI and photography, biometrics, security, and policy, and an author, writer, artist photographer, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast — The Digital Afterlife of Grief.
Can AI Replace Therapy? Hey Pi is the Conversational Chatbot that Works.
https://medium.com/technology-hits/how-pi-ai-replaced-my-therapist-72c21eca6f85
The integration of AI conversational chatbots like ChatGPT in mental health apps aims to screen for or support individuals dealing with grief, isolation, mild depression, or anxiety. By tracking and analyzing human emotions, these apps use machine learning technology to monitor a user’s mood or replicate a human therapist’s interactions. Although this technology presents opportunities to overcome financial and logistical barriers to care, skeptics argue that algorithms are still unable to accurately read and respond to the complexity of human emotion or provide empathetic care.
Seance AI and the Digital Afterlife - Chatting with the Latest Grief Tech.
https://medium.com/technology-hits/seance-ai-and-conversations-with-deceased-62e96c7e6afd
Seance AI is a digital afterlife or death tech platform that uses conversational chatbot technology to give the illusion of talking to the dead. Seance AI was developed by software company, AE Studio and is operated by OpenAI’s API. The idea of a seance takes us back to the Victorian era and refers to a gathering of people trying to establish contact with the dead. The Hollywood film, Ghost put a 1990s spin on the idea with Whoopi Goldberg playing a con artist psychic reader who discovers she is the real deal.
Grief is Artificial: Death in the Hands of Big Tech - Death tech companies and scientists explore AI and grief.
https://medium.com/technology-hits/grief-is-artificial-death-in-the-hands-of-big-tech-and-science-deba060bf95f
Death tech companies and scientists are exploring innovative new designs in grief technology and pushing boundaries that are mind-blowing, like preserving interactive memories in the form of a bot or avatar that replicates the deceased likeness, mannerisms, and voice. But for some, this new overlap between the living and the dead is more fantastic than 19th-century memento mori portraits or death photographs. The technology then and now plays tricks on the vulnerable, prolongs grief, and messes with our sense of reality which is evermore virtual.
Ginger Liu is the founder of Hollywood’s Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Ph.D. Researcher in artificial intelligence and visual arts media — specifically death tech, digital afterlife, AI death and grief practices, AI photography, biometrics, security, and policy, and an author, writer, artist photographer, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast — The Digital Afterlife of Grief.
AI poses an existential threat to the entertainment industry as we know it, and it is entirely justified for the WGA to demand control over its usage. Networks and studios have a troubling history of adopting new technologies. In 2008, studios commanded a $16.9 billion market in DVDs and home videos, but their lack of understanding and adaptation to streaming technology caused an 86 percent loss within the first decade. Change happens rapidly in the entertainment sector, with sound movies replacing silent films and television superseding network radio. The rise of streaming has significantly impacted artists’ income and studio financing, wiping out billions in revenue.
Ginger Liu is the founder of Hollywood’s Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Ph.D. Researcher in artificial intelligence and visual arts media — specifically death tech, digital afterlife, AI death and grief practices, AI photography, entertainment, and an author, writer, artist photographer, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast— The Digital Afterlife of Grief.
Can Artificial Intelligence Recreate the Deceased - death tech companies think so.
Can artificial intelligence recreate our deceased loved ones and will it help or hinder how we grieve? Tech experts and grief therapists have debated the pros and cons of AI but because the technology to replicate the deceased is still in its infancy, the social impact has yet to reach a consensus.
https://medium.com/technology-hits/can-artificial-intelligence-recreate-the-deceased-1f3b65ffae5a
The Rise of the Griefbot
In 2020, a young Chinese software engineer named Yu Jialin stumbled upon an essay about lip-syncing technology that detailed synchronized lip movements with recorded speech. The concept of a grief bot provided an opportunity to communicate his final words to the man who played a significant role in his upbringing.
https://medium.com/technology-hits/the-rise-of-griefbots-44c6b5b8d7db
Creating an AI Version of MeHow I used speech synthesis AI and an AI digital human creator.
https://medium.com/technology-hits/creating-an-ai-version-of-me-578f0c8aa0ff
Creating an AI Version of Me Part 2 - Death tech conversational video platforms, commercial AI video, and generative AI art.
https://medium.com/technology-hits/creating-generative-ai-videos-f57c4b9cb53
Ginger Liu is the founder of Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Ph.D. Researcher in artificial intelligence and visual arts media, and an author, journalist, artist, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast.
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/gliuphoto
Who owns your footprint after you die? Is it big tech companies or the loved ones you’ve left behind? Access and ownership cause unintended consequences that shift societal norms and behaviors in online spaces. Mourning is mediated and managed in different social spaces. Are you prepared for the inevitable and will you take a deletionist or preservationist stance? What is the long-term impact on the bereaved when third parties control technology platforms and your data, make the rules, govern who has access, and how the data is presented? Deletion of the deceased online footprint on social networks and email accounts is seen as a second loss by families and creates a new form of anticipatory grief. Putting too much weight on technology could develop a phantom of personhood that immediate grief could cause.
Ginger Liu is the founder ofGinger Media & Entertainment,a Ph.D. Researcher in artificial intelligence and visual arts media, and anauthor,journalist,artist,and filmmaker. Listen to thePodcast.
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/gliuphoto
Tech Leaders Sign Letter to Halt Generative AI. Plus the Generative AI Tech News Round-Up.
No wonder big tech influencers like Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak have signed an open letter with 1100 industry experts, expressing their concerns over the speed of AI disrupting society. Fueled by ChatGPT’s ability to wipe out the careers of writers and even expressing dystopian concerns for the end of humanity and the:
“loss of control of our civilization.”
Will AI Destroy Hollywood? Small independents and artists should be wary.
Hundreds of millions of dollars are poured into AI startup investment as it is hailed as the greatest revolution since the last one. Does Hollywood have a right to be anxious about AI revolutionizing the industry?
The Trend in Digital Death. Will death and remembrance be virtual or natural?
StoryFile and Hereafter AI are at the forefront of an AI-assisted grieving trend that preserves the digital legacies of the deceased and is changing the way we memorialize the dead.
Ginger Liu is the founder of Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Ph.D. Researcher in artificial intelligence and visual arts media, and an author, journalist, artist, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast.
Artificial IntelligenceTechnology
It’s been a great year for AI photo apps which are dominating the Apple app charts. According to TechCrunch, there were 12.6 million downloads in the first 11 days of December alone.
The Lensa AI photo and editing app is the latest AI photo app to go viral because of its amazing creative capabilities and serious concerns about copyright infringement, data privacy, and the sexual exploitation of women and children. It’s a huge money spinner for app purchases and part of a new generation of apps that are turning prompt engineering into productivity and entertainment tools.
And news on copyright, death tech, and entertainment.
https://medium.com/technology-hits/generative-ai-art-and-photo-apps-dominate-the-market-in-2023-53abfa5e9839
Ginger Liu is the founder of Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Ph.D. Researcher in artificial intelligence and visual arts media, and an author, journalist, artist, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast.
Interactive internet-based technologies are transforming the way in which we understand death, grieving, and coping with loss. Online communication together with changes in social and religious attitudes in western society has created a space where the individual is part of the collective. The transition from analog to digital combines the private with the public and the real with the virtual.
Feeding the digital afterlife zeitgeist are tech giants who are eager to build a synthetic heaven where big egos go to die. The idea of a synthetic heaven is offensive to many with long-standing religious beliefs even though those same beliefs are as synthetic as digital data.
In the 21st century, the internet became a place for people to find community. The bereaved could share their own experiences and validate those they’d lost by sharing photographs and videos and they could find support from those with similar experiences. In-person social interaction is difficult for grievers unless they have a social group but online is different. It’s a place where the bereaved can find a network of similar people to connect with through online grief communities.
Ginger Liu is the founder of Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Ph.D. Researcher in artificial intelligence and visual arts media, and an author, journalist, artist, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast.
Does digital privacy continue after death and how safe is our data from cybercrime? What happens to social media accounts when we die? Most people don’t know what to do with their data or that social media accounts like Facebook, can be memorialized and legacy executors can be appointed.
A service that creates a digital replica of someone without their participation raises complex ethical issues regarding consent and privacy. Companies are not obliged to check that the users of their services are consensual or in fact, have died. There is no law stopping anyone from creating an avatar of another person. These are the new norms around legacies we leave behind in the digital world.
The idea of an autobiographical interactive legacy, driven by markets, publicity, creative technologies, and years of digital grieving is finally upon us. The technology to speak to our dead relatives has been reintroduced to consumers by death tech companies like StoryFile and other market-driven startups.
Ginger Liu is the founder of Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Ph.D. Researcher in artificial intelligence and visual arts media, and an author, journalist, artist, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast, Find me on LinkedIn.
Photography can no longer represent our identity. Our identity can no longer be represented by the two-dimensional flat surface of a photographic image alone. Photography has had its day. The photograph as a referent of our identity will be replaced by an AI Hologram.
In the 21st-century digital world, our identity is represented by multiple forms of technology. In addition to photography — digital video, social media posts, text messaging, and online writing — artificial intelligence is designed to replicate and converse with us. Taken together they form a fuller picture of who we are. From this online data, a narrative is constructed to produce a multimedia autobiography rather than a single portrait but one that is still limited to one-way interaction. Two-way interactive technology will be possible and affordable and easy to use and a fully interactive machine-learning AI hologram will replace the portrait photograph.
We are no more equipped to deal with grief after bereavement than any of our ancestors and our greatest flaw drives technology to find ways to represent who we are and how we interact with our dead. Academics writing before 2001 were fearful of the social, moral, and religious implications proposed by digital immortality and that issues surrounding grief and bereavement are an afterthought for technology designers. Similar to the doubters of the emergence of photography in the 19th century, they are consigned to history in a pre-smartphone social media world and are caught up in the how and not the why. Why is the digital afterlife of a person any different than the afterlife of an embellished photograph or keepsake from the 1850s? Technology has changed but our desire to hold on to our lost loved ones remains as strong as ever.
Ginger Liu is the founder of Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Ph.D. researcher in photography and artificial intelligence, and a podcast producer,journalist,author,artist, and filmmaker.
The creator economy is a $1 Billion industry. AI-generative art is a radical approach to art-making where humans and machines collaborate to produce art with future possibilities for how we are able to work and play. Meta, Google, and other startups have flocked to the AI art economy potential. Big tech is pushing investment in art-producing Generative AI and applying the tech to other forms of content creation like music and podcasts. Tech companies are using Generative AI to build chatbots that can converse with originality and it's no wonder that generative art is dubbed the ‘second wave’ of AI. Much of this technology is some years away, leaving plenty of questions that need answering with regard to ethics and ownership.
In defense of artists' copyright, the Have I Been Trained website checks if your art has been used and can search 5.8 billion online images. The website was created by artists Mat Dryhurst and Holly Herndon and uses bots to help artists opt out of AI data training sets.
Ginger Liu is the founder of Ginger Media & Entertainment, a Ph.D. practice research student in photography and artificial intelligence, and an author, writer, artist, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast.
Artificial intelligence is changing the way we live, connect, and grieve but will digital immortality allow us to live forever? Digital immortality refers to uploading, storing, or transferring a person’s personality into a digital entity or cyberspace, or a computer. As the technology of digital immortality becomes more popular and available, people will find new ways of using AI-generated digital personas.
Our identity has already shifted from the photograph to online social networks and is increasingly moving towards AI technology. And this is where the real revolution begins, in AI and its ability to represent who we are because it is designed to replicate and converse with us. And the emergence of AI in the genealogy of portraiture is driven in part by our insatiable appetite to remain connected with our dead loved ones.
Death and bereavement are driving new ways to communicate with the deceased to give us digital immortality. As artificial intelligence grows in popularity, consumers can animate still photographs, create virtual living worlds or maintain ongoing interaction with the dead via a chatbot application.
How companies like StoryFile are disrupting the death tech industry.
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AI image generators like Dalle are rightfully raising concerns from artists about creative ownership. AI generators are trained on millions of photos and learn to identify things from existing photos. Some of Dalle’s images are machine-made with the user only contributing text prompts, so it’s not copyrightable at all, according to Wired. Remember the monkey selfie copyright case? These images are more likely to be public domain and not owned by anyone, and therefore, free to use. More user input, like editing, could lead to human-made authorship and would be eligible for copyright. But do commercial technology companies own the copyright of the images users manipulate on their platforms? Look at the small print because laws are changing fast.
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Artificial intelligence has caught the zeitgeist of the 21st century. AI is no longer a fantasy concept exchanged by scientists and researchers predicting an uncertain time in the future. In the second decade of the century, AI is as omnipresent as it is mundane. Take the healthcare industry. AI has seamlessly integrated into workflow and systems to focus on patients and on providing more person-centered care that previous bureaucracy, technology, and organizational structure have grappled with. Is it too good to be true? I also discuss my personal experience with dementia and how AI is helping with early detection.
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In the past weeks, two influential women of a similar age died. One was the most famous woman in the world and the other was my aunt. Queen Elizabeth’s death at 96 on the 8th of September was followed by ten days of national mourning in the UK.
In the 21st century, grieving practices have evolved again to incorporate past cultural practices which are equally driven by technology, society, and the human condition.
Who are the providers of grief technology that bridge the gap between the living and the dead? Victorian portrait photographers and AI engineers. The human condition is in how we grieve and do business.