Digital ghosts will soon walk among us
The two-letter technologies — AR and AI — will falsify proof that the dead walk among us and drive a new age of Spiritualism.
A hundred years ago, the idle rich of Europe and America indulged a fascination with the great beyond. A quasi-religious movement called Spiritualism began in the 1830s and peaked as a fad among fashionable people in the 1920s.
The movement's adherents believe in the possibility of communicating with the dead through mediums (people who can allow the dead to speak through them), via seances, "automatic writing" (Ouija-board-like letter picking) and the conjuring of ghosts. Spiritualists also believe that the dead were more evolved than the living, and sought information and advice from the dearly departed.
The pandemic of 1918, the so-called Spanish flu, drove the Spiritualism craze to new heights. Millions died in that pandemic, and World War I which preceded it. People were grieving and wanted answers. So they turned to fraudsters who claimed they could talk to the dead.
Interest in Spiritualism incentivized hoaxes, which in turn drove interest in Spiritualism, as the gullible saw false but believable "evidence" with their own eyes and ears. Mediums communicated with ghosts through knocking and other signs, such as the lifting or tilting of tables. Sometimes ghosts made personal appearances — often dolls or photographs suspended by wire.
Technology facilitated acceptance of hoaxes — photography, movie projection, sound recording and other technologies had special power because they were new and poorly understood by lay audiences at the time.
Even some scientists were duped, as well as prominent authors, including Arthur Conan Doyle.
The rich and famous went nuts for conjuring the dead 100 years ago. And now, they're at it again.
Musical superstar, sneaker mogul and presidential candidate Kanye West, gave his soon-to-be ex-wife Kim Kardashian a hologram of her dead father, Robert Kardashian, for her birthday. The digital ghost told Kardashian that he watches over her and her siblings and children, and that sometimes he leaves hints that he's still around.
This is just the beginning. We're about to enter a new age of technology where the dead walk among us.
As you've no doubt heard, Apple is working on two augmented reality products. The first one will be virtual-reality goggles that will mostly do VR. The real world and the virtual world will be blended together, then displayed on two very high-resolution screens built into the goggles. In the second product, the real world will be seen through clear glass, and virtual objects will appear like holograms in the real world. These will be designed for all day, every-day wear.
Dozens of major companies will make such glasses, but Apple will mainstream it. It's only a matter of time before normal reality is always augmented.
This coming layer of virtual objects that appear to live in the real world I believe will become the primary way the deceased are memorialized and remembered. Shrines will be constructed in mobile location-based mixed-reality. They'll inevitably feature hologram-like videos of the deceased, standing there waving as ghostly apparitions and interactively conversing with surviving family members (like Robert Kardashian, but at scale and for the masses).
In fact, this concept is already here (just not widely distributed). A Japanese tombstone-engraving company called Ryoshin Sekizai offers an AR app called Suma Tomb that creates a hologram of loved ones that can be placed anywhere — a gravesite, in the home or at the place of death. The ghosts are visible only through a smartphone at present. As with Kim Kardashian's dad, the hologram ghosts tell loved ones that "We’re always watching over you."
Roadside memorials will be similar in concept to the ghosts conjured up by Edward Norton in the 2006 movie The Illusionist.
Or maybe they'll be more like the Tupac hologram at Coachella Live nearly a decade ago now.
Either way, augmented reality will surely raise the dead, which will walk among us.
The latest technology that raises loved ones from the dead is a website called Deep Nostalgia from the online genealogy company MyHeritage. You can upload your old photos for free (the assumption is that you'll upload old photos of deceased loved ones) and artificial intelligence animates it, so that grandma is looking around, blinking and looking somewhat alive. It’s creepy, but also moving.
Deep Nostalgia is mind-blowing, but it's just the beginning. In the future, more advanced versions of this technology (combined with other technologies) will put it all together.
Upload an old photo of a dead relative, and AI will bring it to life and make it interactive, all viewable as a 3D hologram — a ghost, in other words, which can answer questions of the kind that Spiritualists sought 100 years ago.
There is no doubt that AI and AR will be used not only to simulate the dead, but also for hoaxes to convince the gullible that ghosts are real and are speaking to us. Fraudsters and mediums will offer to channel lost loved ones, and will appear to do so through deepfake photography, audio and video.
We can also expect services to emerge that enable people to create virtual versions of themselves, uploading their own photos and videos and emails and social posts that will feed AI that will reconstruct the person — body, mind and spirit. And these virtual versions of dead people will be conjured up and made to appear as life-size, 3D holograms that interact convincingly.
Nobody's talking about it. But we're on the verge of a new era in technology-enabled Spiritualism.
Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini were good friends but on opposite sides of the Spiritualism issue and eventually had a falling out because of it.
Houdini's mother passed away while he was touring Europe. Devastated he never had the chance to say goodbye he tried to contact her via mediums. He saw through their trickery and was disgusted by it. He even devoted a part of his magic/escape show to exposing the fraudulism.