Tag: medical ethics

Us humans have been looking for eternal life for eternity. And all this times the search was in vain. Until now. Nowadays there are actual possibilities to hold off, or even transcend death. How far are we willing to go? What consequences do these developments have, for us as individuals and for our society?

 Chris Everlast runs the company MEMENTO. This company specializes in scanning people, tracking their data and creating an avatar from all this information, that can live on after the scanned person deceases. Relatives and loved ones can buy a subscription to the deceased and are able to, in different modules of intensity, keep in touch.

Chris Everlast will take us along what is possible and what will be possible within the next 5 years in the area of living longer. What can we do to stop aging? To become younger? And what about continuing your life virtually? How can we shape that, what questions do we need to ask ourselves about our digital afterlifes? In his story he combines insights from conversations he had with experts in rituals, grief, AI-experts and future-thinkers.

As founder of the ficitional company Memento, Chris knows all about scanning (living) people, and making sure they can live on in the virtual realm after life through AI. You do not have to miss your deceased loved ones anymore. Thanks to the highly advanced technology, you can still chat, talk about the past, and make plans for the future together with your lover, kid or best friend who is no longer physically amongst us.  Memento analyses the way a person writes, speaks and sounds. How closer they can get to you, the more details they can grasp, the more ‘real’ they can make you. But the highlight is the actual scan itself. In 360 degrees, 160 camera’s capture every detail of your body and posture.

Chris runs the company with his (deceased and scanned) wife Elsa. The character of Elsa is designed in such a way that when Chris is being interviewed by a moderator, Elsa can actually join the conversation. The audience will get a personal and direct glimpse of AI in action, and get to experience how AI will take up a bigger space in our lives in the near future.

Memento is a ficitonal company and Chris is a fictional expert. But all technology that Chris describes is already existing and ready to be used. That’s why now is the time to have a conversation about all social, psychological and ethical implications that a digital afterlife encompasses.

Chris Everlast is created together with actor Tijs Huys. 

ELSA is created together with actor Elsa May Averill and with PIPS:LAB