Since Facebook became a global phenomenon, the company has grappled with the question of how to handle the accounts of the deceased. Today, they can be converted into memorial accounts, which the ownership company Meta describes as “a place where friends and family can come together and share their memories of a person’s death.”
But now you look on another variant. Recently, Meta received a patent for AI technology that is trained to mimic the way a person normally communicates and continue to post even when the user is no longer able to do so. The technology “can be used to simulate a deceased person,” the patent text states. The goal is described as allowing others to “continue to experience” the users’ presence, even if they are dead.
The technology is based on a so-called Large Language Model, the same AI technology that underlies Chat GPT, among other things.
However, it is well known that tech companies sometimes file patents for technologies they never use, and a Meta spokesperson told Business Insider that there are no plans to move forward with the project.
However, describes the patent on how the AI system could be used to communicate with living humans by “using the language model to create responses on behalf of the user to posts published by other users.”
The system closely resembles concepts previously featured in science fiction. Among other things, an episode of the dystopian TV series “Black Mirror” shows how a grieving woman recreates a dead relative in the form of an AI clone.
Meta had already filed for the patent in 2023, but it was granted at the end of December. The inventor is said to be Andrew Bosworth, Chief Technology Officer at Meta.
