Death capitalism in an age of artificial intelligence — more specifically, the sale by start-ups of the ability to chat with simulations of dead loved ones to those who are grieving — is the controversial and ethically thorny phenomenon examined in Eternal You by German documentarians Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck, whose previous The Cleaners (2018) delved into content moderation on the internet. Premiering in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at Sundance, the engaging film is slick and conventional in form, and leans toward a cautionary rather than celebratory perspective on the technology and its implications. It will offer little that is new or revelatory to those who have more than a passing grasp of the ample news coverage of this hot topic, but as a basic overview it is solid, managing to come over as both matter-of-fact and deeply unsettling.
Marketing for AI technology plays on our hope for immortality, promising to bring it out of the realms of science fiction and religion, into internet-accessible reality. We are swept over cityscapes, and across a digitally connected globe to hear from creators and users from Detroit to Seoul and Auckland about their conceptions and experiences of the latest forays into human simulation, with real manuscripts of ChatGPT exchanges with deadbots (chatbots based on deceased people) incorporated. Joshua Barbeau had been there when the life support of his fiance was turned off, and missed her terribly, until website Project December enabled him to create a likeness of her that was constantly there, ready to respond, uncannily impersonating the way that she spoke. Stephenie Oney, who kept calling her father’s voicemail after he passed to hear his voice, enlisted HereAfter AI to create his avatar, so that her children could remember him “with more dimension,” through an interactive memorial unveiled at a large, emotional family gathering. Expert face renderer Mark Sagar uses his own baby as a source model, as he works to create a digital nervous system that reproduces aspects of human consciousness.
The question of whether simulating the dead is unhealthy, preventing people from accepting their loss and properly grieving so that they can move on, is just the tip of the iceberg in a documentary that touches on even more negative experiences of the AI. The deadbots are experienced like ghosts, creating great distress if users are told things they do not want to hear. Religious believer Christi Angel secretly sought comfort in a simulation of a former boyfriend who died from a drug overdose, but feared he was not in a good place, and might even try to possess her, when he said he did not cross over from Earth and was haunting a rehab clinic. Perhaps most disturbing of all, we watch a mother who has lost her young daughter use virtual reality to fulfill the yearning to encounter her again and create new memories — a meeting controversially televised as a spectacle in South Korea, sparking a furious debate over the exploitation of grief and voyeurism.
The founder of Project December, Jason Rohrer, is given ample screen time to set out his rather libertarian perspective on the experimentation and ethical implications around simulating the dead, and contends that consenting adults should be free to use the technology how they like, taking the moral responsibility upon themselves. More circumspect voices on potential dangers include MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle, who warns of the technology’s manipulative nature in tapping into our desire for transcendence, as our access to memories of a person are taken hostage. Footage is featured of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee oversight hearing in Washington DC in May 2023 on whether greater regulation of AI is needed, a hearing that reflected a climate of increasing public alarm around the technology. Several people in the documentary point out that ChatGPT inexplicably displayed linguistic intelligence about things not in the systems it had studied — showing it is beyond the understanding or ultimate control of those programming it. As our use of technology is only set to become more immersive, the accessible reflections and reasoned skepticism Eternal You offers is urgent and timely.
Directors, screenwriters: Hans Block, Moritz Riesewieck
Producers: Christian Beetz, Georg Tschurtschenthaler
Cinematography: Tom Bergmann, Konrad Waldmann
Editors: Anne Juenemann, Lisa Zoe Geretschlaeger
Music: Gregor Keienburg, Raffael Seyfried
Production company: Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktion (Germany)
Sales: Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktion (Germany)
Venue: Sundance (World Cinema Documentary Competition)
In English, Korean
87 minutes
