Microsoft Patented Dead People Chatbot
They say they have no plans for the tech.
If you’re a fan of the Netflix series Black Mirror, what Microsoft has just developed may sound a little familiar.
The development team has been “creating a conversational chatbot modeled after a specific person — a “past or present entity … such as a friend, a relative, an acquaintance, a celebrity, a fictional character, a historical figure,” and the patent has been filed.
But don’t worry, you’re not going to be able to chat with Bowie, or grandma anytime soon. Tim O’Brien, the general Manager of Microsoft AI Programs says that there are no immediate plans for this and agree that it is indeed CREEPY!
According to the patent though, the bot scours the internet for “social data”. Basically, posts, images, messages, voice data, and any other personal information that may be floating on the internet and use all that data to create a digital version of that person that can include personal attributes including style, diction, tone, voice, and essentially all the ways that person naturally conversed.
