By now, it should be evident that each passing year brings with it advancements in technology, landing anywhere on an imaginary graph containing the likes of the latest smartphone to a car that can brew a mean cup of coffee. One area that’s been hovering over the whole of humanity for far longer than a need for a house that dictates a grocery list is that of the afterlife; pondering what happens after each and every one of us shuffle off this mortal coil remains, quite possibly, an everlastingly unanswerable question, but for those left behind in the wake of a loved one’s passing, a more pressing matter would be the manner in which one deals with said loss, and how best to move on. It’s different for everyone, as inevitable as it may be, but when artificial intelligence, or AI, enters this conversation, it’s then that things take a turn for the better or worse, depending on who you ask. “Eternal You” attempts to address every angle of such a milestone in the meeting of technological breakthrough and grief, and where our society currently seems to be headed could easily be summarized as a terribly bumpy ride.
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Over the course of the documentary’s 87-minute runtime, several companies alongside their founders are profiled, each with their own form of AI-fueled computer programming meant to help people cope with death by providing each their own proprietary version of a digital soul the user can interact with as if the deceased were still alive. First to the table is Project December, which is seen in the opening scene. It is used by a woman named Christi as she types words into a text box akin to any chat room or instant messenger. It’s here where we see that, on the receiving end, is Cameroun, her late husband, only it’s far from the Cameroun she knew when she was alive; Project December pulls from the entirety of mankind’s literature, media, and vast libraries of information which, when joined with a few pieces of personal details related to Cameroun, creates a copy of the man Christi can catch up with as if no time has passed. Joshua is another Project December user, utilizing the program to “communicate” with his wife Jessica, also gone from this world.
Both Christi and Joshua touch briefly on the relationships they held with their significant others. Still, even with a relatively limited amount of backstory on both Cameroun and Jessica, it’s nonetheless supremely unnerving to see the chats unfold as the beings on the other end describe such discomforting topics as what it’s like where they are at that exact moment. One scene has Christi overcome with fear when “Cameroun” describes his current residence as none other than Hell; this is surrounded by check-ins with company founder Jason Rohrer as he pokes holes in Christi’s religious foundation and attempts to address issues with Project December, such as one in which a user was infuriated when her late father’s digital persona acted nothing like how the man was while alive, as the copy proceeded to answer questions seemingly wrong and unleash a volley of bad language, all at the same time. There are clearly still kinks to be ironed out, and in that regard, it’s almost a relief to know that, at least for now, companies such as this may not be as close to playing God as one might believe.
Unfortunately, more players await their turn in the wings, with the next being HereAfterai, going a step beyond by recreating both the personality as well as voice in a way that results in a pseudo-avatar; Stephanie Oney’s using it to attempt contact with her late father, but when the big demonstration occurs before Oney’s assembled extended family, the reaction provokes understandable questions, some simply asking how exactly it works while others acknowledging their inclination to embrace new tech but knowing there’s always a line that should presumably never be crossed. It’s by this point that comparisons to one of the most impactful early episodes of “Black Mirror“ entitled, “Be Right Back“ swiftly come to mind, in which Martha (Hayley Atwell) signs up for a service that takes text messages, voicemails, email and the like to create a computer-based version of her husband Ash (Domnhall Gleeson) following his death in a car accident, and it’s here in “Eternal You” that we’re introduced to Justin Harrison, who’s company Yov seems strikingly similar to the service profiled on “Be Right Back. “ Harrison’s mindset not only touches on the concept of how the personality of someone who’s deceased will evolve as time passes—his line in the sand involves leaving their personality as it was when the person died—but also appears focused on thumbing his nose at the mere idea of death, which goes yet another step further when the film checks in on Mark Sagar, the founder of Soul Machines and who, in a particularly haunting moment kicking off the film’s third act, uses his own infant child as a model for a complete digital clone, designed to adopt every characteristic of its human counterpart.
With Harrison, his ultimate goal seems to be an augmented reality setup wherein users will don smart glasses that allow wearers to interact with an avatar of anyone who’s passed on, but it’s in the film’s final scenes that this destination is finally reached, to an extent; HyunSuk Lee has developed a VR-based experiment as part of an overseas television program called, “Meeting You, “ and it’s here that a grieving mother, Jang Ji-sung, can meet a version of her daughter Naeyon, which, while admittedly tearful to witness, does indeed raise a true dilemma as to how one might accept loss as time goes by, now with these tools seemingly at humanity’s disposal. Even more difficult to comprehend is the thought of shutting down such a program; would the AI version of your loved one protest such a task, prompting the user to continue using the service and accordingly line the pockets of company shareholders even further? Sherry Turkle, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is an almost necessary recurring face throughout the film, raising some major quandaries about whether this technology diminishes the overall importance of human life; she isn’t afraid to use the word transcendence at one point as well, but by then the 2014 Johnny Depp-starring sci-fi thriller about a dying scientist uploading his consciousness to a supercomputer should already be on the mind of the viewer, with eerie similarities more than apparent even in a brief glimpse of “Eternal You.“
Is it possible that this tech could provide an answer to much, much bigger questions about death that we as a species have pondered since the dawn of time? Ultimately, there’s no answer to the biggest question, and the fear and ethical impasse, alongside the unavoidable truth that progress in this field will only continue to accelerate, seem to have done nothing more than create something of a mess in every area. Directors Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck manage to balance out every subject interviewed, every company head, and every piece of software profiled well, all supported by an appropriately ominous score and necessary periodic looks at a hearing in which OpenAI founder Sam Altman testifies seemingly on behalf of AI as a whole. For decades, cryonics were believed to be the key to immortality, with mind transfer pioneers such as Ray Kurzweil eventually leading the charge in a different direction, but as ChatGPT becomes as commonplace as a text message and the path to computer-based divinity continues to shorten at a shocking rate, films such as this become even more vital. [A-]
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