Capturing a watershed moment, Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck’s unmissable documentary Eternal You charts the hope and horror of the digital afterlife.
I was 19 when my dad died. I’d just started university and then, just as suddenly, I was in stasis. It was a long time ago, though the impact never really leaves you.
There’s no way to cheat death or swerve the punched-out hollowness of grief. But, just in case, I’ve started archiving text messages from my mum, and saving important photos. I’m recording her life stories, even the ones I’ve heard a hundred times before.
The surprise of Eternal You isn’t that so many of us are desperate to hold on to our loved ones, or gain closure when they die. It’s that it’s already big business.
Comforting? Sure. a dystopian, sci-fi nightmare? Also yes.
Digital afterlife services are creating virtual copies of loved ones far removed from a messy Dropbox folder of memories.
You can type, text and talk with your partner or child after they die. You can spend time with their avatars. Soon, we’ll be able to touch them, like they never left at all.
Comforting? Sure. A dystopian, sci-fi nightmare? Also yes.
Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck’s documentary deftly unpacks how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is defining what it means to be human. And the biggest shock is: the future is now.
Talking to the dead
The curious paradox of being human is that we all experience death, yet have no universal conversation or comfort about it.
Some cultures hold wakes, others whole festivals but mostly we navigate grief for ourselves, alone. If you’re lucky, maybe there’s a support group.
It’s no surprise this has left a lucrative little gap tech companies are racing to fill with AI. In Eternal You, sociologist Sherry Turkle likens these digital afterlife services to the comfort and order that religion once offered.
Unlike heaven, though, we get to peek into the digital afterlife.
One family talks to their dearly departed dad through a tablet, his voice echoing around the living room. It’s not really him, of course; a computer program is recreating the sound of him.
A woman in Korea embraces her child via the wonders of virtual reality. Watching her hold her dead daughter – her arms still achingly empty – is heartbreaking.
Others we observe in Eternal You interact with chatbot versions of their loved ones, scrolling through the afterlife one sentence at a time.
Christi was too busy to reply to the last text Cameroun ever sent her while alive. Typing with his virtual entity – an AI chatbot – is a way of resolving that guilt.
Then she asks if he’s happy in the afterlife, and “Cameroun” reveals he’s in hell. He’s matter of fact about it. The exchange ends when he says maybe he’ll haunt her.
This is documentary
Eternal You isn’t meant to amaze; it’s not a showcase of groundbreaking tech – though what’s here is certainly jaw-dropping.
Instead, Block and Riesewieck’s observational documentary moves seamlessly between the people invested in this ballooning industry. These include service users, tech creators, and industry commentators.
There’s no overarching narration, and yet the message comes through loud, clear and full of dread.
What qualifies CEOs to build services that will define or shape what it means to be human? Certainly, some of the people pulling the strings – we only hear from men – are more enamored with creation than the slog of responsibility, duty and ethics, never mind the soul.
Can we trust tech companies, which are routinely hacked or mishandle personal data, to keep our loved ones online in perpetuity? Will avatars be allowed to age, or develop personalities they never had while alive? If we can’t control AI, do we even get to decide?
Then there’s the reason AI is able to mimic us so flawlessly in the first place. These models are trained on us, without our consent, through content we’ve posted online and, sometimes, even offline. There’s no opt out, and no say in how material is used and monetised by corporations.
These past practices are red flags to the dangers that lie ahead. There’s a world of difference between tech that allows us to say our goodbyes, and gadgets that turn our loved ones into funfair rides that never end. But of course, they must end.
Death in the digital realm is like a Vegas casino
Death in the digital realm is like a Vegas casino: the fun doesn’t stop until the money does. The endless subscription model may be the corporate dream but for users, eventually is means saying goodbye all over again.
Eternal You offers no answers – but that’s its achievement. It’s a snapshot of an industry that’s outpacing us, and which is creating products which can never be tested to failure before they’re unleashed on the public.
It’s easy to conclude, too, that those who build the digital afterlife see themselves as architects, and the rest of us as only consumers.
This is documentary. But it feels like a horror.
Eternal You (2024), directed by Hans Block & Moritz Riesewieck
This film screened at Sheffield DocFest 2024
What to read or watch next
- Her (AI and loss)
- Ex Machina, Terminator 2, WarGames (AI fears)
- Minority Report, Arrival (sci-fi, grief)
Picture credit: Composite of still from Eternal You, supplied by Sheffield DocFest, and optical fibres by Umberto
