Back in 2016, James Vlahos received some terrible news – his father was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
“I loved my dad, I was losing my dad,” says James, who is based in Oakland, California.
He was determined to make the most of the remaining time he had with his father. “I did an oral history project with him, where I just spent hours, and hours, and hours just audio recording his life story.”
This coincided with a time when James was starting to explore a career in AI, so his project soon evolved.
“I thought, gosh, what if I could make something interactive out of this?” he says. “For a way to more richly keep his memories, and some sense of his personality, which was so wonderful, to keep that around.”
James’ father John passed away in 2017, but not before James had turned what he’d recorded into an AI-powered chatbot that could answer questions about his dad’s life – in his father’s voice.
Such use of AI to artificially bring people back to life has long been explored in science fiction, but developments in AI technology have now made it possible in real life. In 2019, James turned his chatbot into an app and business called HereafterAI, which allows users to do the same for their loved ones.
