By Eric Brown

In 2016, Professor Hossein Rahnama made a media splash with a project called Augmented Eternity that aimed to bring the dead back to virtual life. Rahnama envisioned using deep learning tools and social media content to construct digital replicas of the deceased that could be queried using a natural language interface.

In recent years, this sci-fi concept has moved closer to sci than fi. In 2011, Ray Kurzweil speculated about the feasibility of uploading one’s personality and history to exist autonomously in the cloud. Since then, several “upload” projects have emerged such as the now-defunct MIT spinoff Eternime. Yet, Rahnama was the first to present a feasible architecture to achieve an approximation of virtual immortality via digital replicas.

Nine years later, Rahnama continues to pursue Augmented Eternity as a visiting professor at MIT Media Lab’s Human Dynamics group. The project has evolved to reflect new AI developments such as Large Language Models, as well as legal, ethical, and user experience questions. After research revealed that many people felt uncomfortable holding a digital séance with a replica of a loved one, Rahnama recast the “Human-Ai agents” behind the avatars as empathetic story-telling machines rather than chatbots.

More recently Rahnama has launched a related AI research project called “perspective aware AI,” which we explore here. The technology enables the creation of specialized Human-Ai agent surrogates based on our digital history, knowledge, and perspectives. While the new project lacks the sci-fi appeal of digital immortality, it may well have a greater impact on business and society.