EchoUs
Digital Afterlife - EchoUs
Mentors : Paulina Zybinska & Luke Franzke
The loss of a loved one is a profound and life-altering experience. Grief manifests in different ways, and while numerous psychological models, such as the five stages of grief, attempt to guide individuals through the mourning process, they rarely provide complete closure. As technology continues to evolve and integrate into various aspects of human life, a growing question emerges: could it also change the way we experience loss and memory?
In recent years, businesses have begun offering digital afterlife services, using AI to create deep-faked videos and chatbots based on the data of deceased individuals. While these solutions claim to preserve a person’s essence, they raise significant ethical and psychological concerns. Is it moral to reconstruct someone without their explicit consent? Can a person’s social media activity accurately capture their true self beyond a curated, surface-level version? Moreover, is it possible to create a more comprehensive and long-term representation of a person that goes beyond fragmented data?
With these challenges in mind, we created EchoUs - a solution designed to offer a more personal, ethical, consentual and lasting digital afterlife experience.
Proposal
The Project EchoUs is about exploring the connection between AI, robotics, and immortality. The goal was to create sensory-motor objects controlled by large language models (LLMs) that could represent the personalities of deceased people, either real or fictional.
In groups of four, we started by researching existing projects related to AI, death, and artificial eternity. This helped us understand what has already been done and gave us ideas for our own project. Through looping through different approaches to digital afterlife, we recognized the issue of only having limited, posthumous data which relies on digital traces. Our speculative Object EchoUs introduces an interactive data storage that comes with a wearable device that passively records and collects spoken words, conversations, music, and even personal reflections.
The wearable device, designed as a subtle, aesthetically pleasing accessory continuously gathers real-life information while prioritizing privacy and consent. Upon passing away, the accessory is placed into the data storage, allowing loved ones to engage with an AI-powered recreation of the deceased. Conversations and personal data remain private and are not processed until the person chooses to activate the afterlife function.
By integrating a long-term, unfiltered and real-life data collection, EchoUs ensures that the essence of a person is captured authentically, preserving their voice, thoughts, and emotions for those they leave behind.
Design Concept
For the shape search, we chose an organic form that subtly resembles a telephone, reinforcing the affordance of communication with loved ones. Additionally, the data storage device is complemented by an accessory featuring built-in microphones, which record a person’s voice throughout their lifetime. If the individual passes away, the top part of the accessory is placed into the data storage unit, where the recorded information can be accessed and processed. After this integration, users can communicate through the top part of the data storage unit. The object was constructed using building foam, cut with a CNC machine, and hand-sanded for refinement. The accessories were also handcrafted with the help of a lathe machine. For interaction, we embedded a microphone inside the top part, which is connected to a computer, as well as an Arduino, which in turn controls an LED strip and a display. The personalities were created by integrating Node.js and the OpenAI API, allowing us to train a ChatGPT model with different personality traits.
Final look
EchoUs was developed over a five-week module Robotics and AI at zhdk. Working in a team of four, we built a working prototype that addressed both the technological and ethical dimensions of creating digital afterlife embodiments. The project was mentored by Luke Franske and Paulina Zybinska and explored questions such as: What defines a person’s identity, and can it be preserved digitally? How can we balance ethical concerns around consent and privacy? Would prolonged access to an AI-generated afterlife help or hinder the grieving process?
Softwares Used: Arduino, VS Code, Onshape, Node.js
Conclusion
EchoUs was developed over a five-week module Robotics and AI at zhdk. Working in a team of four, we built a working prototype that addressed both the technological and ethical dimensions of creating digital afterlife embodiments. The project was mentored by Luke Franske and Paulina Zybinska and explored questions such as: What defines a person’s identity, and can it be preserved digitally? How can we balance ethical concerns around consent and privacy? Would prolonged access to an AI-generated afterlife help or hinder the grieving process?
Softwares Used: Arduino, VS Code, Onshape, Node.js
EchoUs was developed over a five-week module Robotics and AI at zhdk. Working in a team of four, we built a working prototype that addressed both the technological and ethical dimensions of creating digital afterlife embodiments. The project was mentored by Luke Franske and Paulina Zybinska and explored questions such as: What defines a person’s identity, and can it be preserved digitally? How can we balance ethical concerns around consent and privacy? Would prolonged access to an AI-generated afterlife help or hinder the grieving process?
Softwares Used: Arduino, VS Code, Onshape, Node.js