New app lets you talk to the dead
This app lets people talk to dead people on their smartphone — no seance required.
A South Korean tech company is using 3D scanning and artificial intelligence to one day allow people to gab — and take selfies — with computer-simulated versions of their dead loved ones.
The “With Me” app digitally recreates the dead as avatars using 3D scans that were done while the person was still alive.
A demonstration video of the app taken by the BBC shows a person saying “I love you” to a blue-tinted avatar on a screen. It nods and replies in a robotic voice, “I love you too.” And it also offers “kisses.”
Eun Jin Lim, from app developer Elrois, told the BBC it’s designed for someone “who has lost in their family.”
“That is for my personal experience. I had my grandmother before and she passed away a few years ago but I really, really regret that she passed away and we didn’t have any pictures together. I cannot take a photo with her anymore so in that case it would be great to use our avatars,” the developer told the TV station.
She said some people may think the app is odd, but she wants to remember her grandmother “forever.”
And she rejected the notion that the app creates phony experiences.
“It is not fake memories I think because it is 3D, realistic avatars,” she said.
Interested users have to visit a 3D scanning booth to become an avatar once they die. Cellphones aren’t yet equipped with the technology.