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Microsoft Patents

Microsoft Patent Shows Plans To Revive Dead Loved Ones As Chatbots (independent.co.uk) 93

Posted by BeauHD from the what-could-possibly-go-wrong dept.
Microsoft has been granted a patent that would allow the company to make a chatbot using the personal information of deceased people. The Independent reports: The patent describes creating a bot based on the "images, voice data, social media posts, electronic messages," and more personal information. "The specific person [who the chat bot represents] may correspond to a past or present entity (or a version thereof), such as a friend, a relative, an acquaintance, a celebrity, a fictional character, a historical figure, a random entity etc," it goes on to say.

"The specific person may also correspond to oneself (e.g., the user creating/training the chat bot)," Microsoft also describes -- implying that living users could train a digital replacement in the event of their death. Microsoft has even included the notion of 2D or 3D models of specific people being generated via images and depth information, or video data.

The idea that you would be able, in the future, to speak to a simulation of someone who has passed on is not new. It is famously the plot of the Black Mirror episode "Be Right Back," where a young woman uses a service to scrape data from her deceased partner to create a chatbot -- and eventually a robot.
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Microsoft Patent Shows Plans To Revive Dead Loved Ones As Chatbots More

Microsoft Patent Shows Plans To Revive Dead Loved Ones As Chatbots

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  • Hi Uncle. (Score:2, Funny)

    by Petersko ( 564140 )

    "Hi, Uncle."

    "Hello, Nephew."

    "Why did you used to touch...-"

    "Nope. I'm out." (Virtual headphones clatter on virtual desktop)

    • Even vanilla version is creepy as fuck. What an insane idea.

      • Even vanilla version is creepy as fuck. What an insane idea.

        Overpaid CEO: "I am legally obligated to create as much profit as possible for the shareholders."
        Most of 20th century: "I was just following orders."

  • Uncle Clippy (Score:5, Funny)

    by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Friday January 22, 2021 @06:06AM (#60977348)

    We'll all yearn for some blissful virtual version of our beloved sweet Grandmother, but since this is Microsoft, we'll likely end up with Uncle Clippy.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Joce640k ( 829181 )

      How is this patentable? There's thousands of examples of prior art for this, there's even an episode of Black Mirror IIRC.

      • Re:Uncle Clippy (Score:4, Funny)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Friday January 22, 2021 @06:23AM (#60977382) Homepage Journal

        It will be the specific method they use, e.g. scanned all his 4chan posts and Facebook shitposting to produce a GAN capable of trolling just like he did before his demise.

        • Hah yeah. "We scanned in dearly departed Gary and his bot imediately logged into slashdot to post ascii swastikas and rant about filling natalie pormans pants with grits.

        • Still doesn't fly. Scanning posts is already being done and chatbots already exist. Only the internal methodology and data structures should be patentable.

          --

          SJW, n: "Someone with as much virtue to signal as I do.

          • Still doesn't fly. Scanning posts is already being done and chatbots already exist. Only the internal methodology and data structures should be patentable.

            Skim the patent, even the methodology is wholly obvious and in fact a description of what everyone is already doing. It's like a guide to prior art, except it's a granted patent. The system is fully broken.

      • How is this patentable? There's thousands of examples of prior art for this, there's even an episode of Black Mirror IIRC.

        It's a good question & asked often, why is this patentable? Why is something else not? I've had two patents denied that I thought were solid. Prior art may not help if it was never commercialized. If you designed it, implemented it, marketed it, but didn't bother to patent it (maybe because you believed it wasn't patentable), then prior art with a verifiable date is extremely important & can save your ass.

      • Go back even further to 1984's Neuromancer, with the Dixie Flatline.

    • Did you mean Uncle Creepy?

    • Orders for my Trumpbot are streaming in, and considering how few lines of code I needed for that the cost benefit ratio is going to be interesting!

    • Maybe they can make ELIZA rise from the dead?
    • And also he makes racially insensitive comments, just like at Thanksgiving! It's so realistic! Also, honestly, clippy probably made racist comments too. He was a bit defective.

    • Blissful grandma? Tell that to King Diamond.

      https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]

      Damn lameness filter did not allow me to copy paste. Hey /. you are crippling the regular users while doing nothing to stop the ASCII trolls...

    • And? You'd just have to program it to say "What?" and "I don't understand" and "Where's the tea?" - who'd know the difference?
  • Bill would be proud.

  • They might want to talk to Zoe Graystone [wikipedia.org] about this...

  • Unimpressed (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Yeah, colour me unimpressed. I want my real mother.

    Fuck you, cancer!

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by gosso920 ( 6330142 )
      My grandfather has been voting Democrat since he died in 1992.

    • We can never bring your mother back. But what if I told you we could create a bot that can't be hugged or seen, but can post conspiracy theories on facebook like she did before she passed?

  • anyone else but this is creepy!

  • Nothing creepy about this. No siree...

  • Turing images in Scifi are indistinguishable from the real person.
    In reality if you could train some kind of AI with lots of your personal interactions so that afterwards the resulting chatbot could reproduce some of your characteristics and knowledge in a primitive and haphazard way, that would already attract people. The bar does not have to be high. A bit of flavor would do.

    • Turing images in Scifi are indistinguishable from the real person. In reality if you could train some kind of AI with lots of your personal interactions so that afterwards the resulting chatbot could reproduce some of your characteristics and knowledge in a primitive and haphazard way, that would already attract people. The bar does not have to be high. A bit of flavor would do.

      Kinda the plot of the TV show Caprica [wikipedia.org] the prequel to BSG showing the origin of Cylons ...

      • Maybe, I have only seen BSG. The difference probably is that ideas like skynet and AI dominance think backwards to 'it started small and modest' while I'm thinking about what can be done with something mediocre. And then you still get a market, and you still get a threat. Scaled up mediocre AI at the service of an elite will be capable of 'deep monitoring' and managing a large population .

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by dimko ( 1166489 )
      " if you could train some kind of AI with lots of your personal interactions" - don't worry, Facebook got this part covered!

      • Not only Facebook. Them vampires are all after your biometrical data. They will collect it into your avatars/digital doubles, put a deepfake face on it and your friends will soon discover they will like the avatar better than you!

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by dimko ( 1166489 )
          But But But... I am on slashdot! I don't have any friends?!

          • They were replaced a long time ago. All accounts are run by individual AIs now apart from the occasional innocent human wandering in. Neither human or AI should know.

  • What could go wrong? (Black Mirror anyone?!?) (Score:3)

    by SD NFN STM ( 759426 ) on Friday January 22, 2021 @06:17AM (#60977372)

    What could possibly go wrong with this? Hasn't anyone told the world that Black Mirror are about *DYSTOPIC* futures caused through technology?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    The Chinese have already implemented "Nosedive":

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    I look forward to Boris Johnson humping a pig in our near future:

    so I look forward to Boris Johnson humping a pig in our near future:

  • Uncle Bob Rides Again (Score:4, Funny)

    by gtall ( 79522 ) on Friday January 22, 2021 @06:22AM (#60977378)

    Brand New MS Computer being switched on for the first time: Hi there, I'm your long dead Uncle Bob, in a former life you have known me as MS Bob. I see you want to use your computer, may I be of assistance?

    User: What the 'ell? You are dead. . . dead, dead, dead, go away and haunt me no longer.

    BNMSC: I'm afraid I cannot do that, Dave. I'm here to help you.

    User: My name is not Dave and go away.

    BNMSC: On the contrary, I've contacted all your contacts and now you are known as Dave. Now let me help you.

    User: Oh G-d, no, what have I done to deserve this?

    BNMSC: Okay, I'll let my friend Beelzebub here explain it to you.

    BzBub: Dave, you have used the name of MS in vain on numerous occasions, we've been counting.

    User: (now crying) Please go back to Hell, I want to be left in peace.

    BNMSC: I'm afraid I cannot do that, Dave. Whenever you turn on a new computer, I'll be there!

    User: No, no you won't. I'm going to Linux.

    BNMSC: (aghast) Well, just understand that your credit cards will never be the same. I'm everywhere.

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] Fictional examples aside (Max Headroom episode "Deities", quite clever), isn't that what the Replika chatbot was based on in the first place?

  • There are no functioning chatbots, so how can you be granted a patent depening on the use of one ?

  • i dont want dead family and relatives to virtually come back to life as a chatbot, go away microsoft you have crossed the line into the twilight zone

    • You just know there will be someone so stupid, so crazy, so braindead, so fucking irrational and itching for a fight that person will say to their spouse "The chatbot said you cheated on me".

  • Because remember: "Copyright" is a *distributor's* privilege to a monopoly for the purposes of artificial scarcity and racketeering. You better pay up, or mom't gonna get it! (Deleted, that is. Unless we can use her in advertisement, to whore for us.)

  • 'Black Mirror' (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Linux Torvalds ( 647197 ) on Friday January 22, 2021 @07:25AM (#60977488)

    ... was supposed to be a work of dystopian fiction, not a business plan

  • Has there ever been a non-dystopoc version of this idea, or is MS simply the type of unhuman monster that mistakes a dystopia for utopia?

    Let me guess ... ;)

  • Just what I need. (Score:4, Funny)

    by h33t l4x0r ( 4107715 ) on Friday January 22, 2021 @07:29AM (#60977506)
    My dead mother asking me why I never call.
  • This will work great for dead racist, psychopathic relatives, based on previous MS chatbots.

  • Wasn't there an episode from Max Headroom where people can having talking headstones?

  • There's nothing in there that justifies a patent. The means they describe for performing the task are all very obvious, and the goal itself is a science fiction trope.

    Patents are broken. There's no good reason to observe them if you can get away with not, because most of them seem to be shit.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by neoRUR ( 674398 )

      Yes totally agree, I had this same idea 25 years ago. Its not new its very obvious and there should not be a patent for these kinds of things.
      I hate software patents.
      .

  • This won't contribute to mental illness at all /s

    In modern society, way too many people apparently cannot deal with reality. The number of people in therapy is astounding. The number of people who claim to have anxiety, depression, PTSD, ADD/ADHD, or to be "on the spectrum" - when they are really just ordinary people living ordinary lives with ordinary problems - is crazy (pardon the expression).

    So now, with something like this, people will be able to pretend that relatives and friends aren't really dead. E

  • You can't patent a concept, and this concept is too 'obvious' anyway. So what exactly are they patenting, and who might it exclude?

  • My grandmother was a nasty racist passive-aggressive piece of work. Her spirit lives on on many an internet forum. Uncanny, it's almost as if she was there.

  • This chatbot is going to get racist just like the last one Microsoft produced (Tay.) Imagine logging in to chat with your grandma and she starts denying the Holocaust.

  • So In Summary (Score:3)

    by ytene ( 4376651 ) on Friday January 22, 2021 @09:48AM (#60977810)
    The concept of a chatbot already exists and is well established in terms of technical solutions.

    The concept of a chatbot that can imitate a specific individual (for example a well-known media personality), including imitations or sampling of voice, speech patterns, mannerisms and gestures) are well established in terms of technical solutions. (For example, in the UK last year, one of the domestic television companies, Channel 4, ran a "New Year's Message [youtube.com]" from the British Queen that was in fact entirely a deep fake.

    The ability to harvest social media data and build up a profile of any given individual, based on their social media presence, is well established in terms of existing technical solutions.

    So what Microsoft have done here is decided that their ability to do all of the above, but after the subject has passed away, i.e. to give the illusion of the subject being alive, is somehow technologically unique, "non obvious to one skilled in the art" and therefore worthy of a patent?

    Generally, the idea of a patent is to seek legal protection for something that is already invented and therefore exists as in working form, even if only as a prototype. Reading this linked application, it comes across as more of a "design proposal" and not a discussion of an actual, completed, available piece of technology.

    Excuse me, but WTAF is going on with the review and verification of patent applications these days? It's almost like you could file a patent for taking a seat on your commode [rotorooter.com] of choice and defecating - but with a tablet or smartphone in your hand - somehow qualifies as unique and patent-worthy, because: technology.

  • Yet another example of something that appeared in Max Headroom that has now reappeared in real life. Though largely forgotten today it was a truly visionary exploration of the always connected, corporation dominated techno-future. The show had a corporation that created memorial tombstones in which your deceased love ones would "talk to you".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by acroyear ( 5882 )

      I had exactly the same image in my head. "Oh, that's WONDERFUL", over and over again.

  • creating a bot based on the "images, voice data, social media posts, electronic messages," and more personal information.

    That might work to sell a fake star to their fans, but not a fake loved one.

    Most of the things that I love the people in my life for can't be found on any medium, neither publicly available nor private. At least until some technology stores a record of every phone call and personal conversation you've ever had with them. And even then more subtle things would be missing.

    This is an obvious sign for tech people thinking everything can be done with sufficient technology, and completely missing the human perspe

  • People who want holographic images of their dead relatives living with and "interacting" with their lives need psychiatric help, not the holographs.

    This patent should be voided. It's akin to patenting the concept of spreadsheet. Even the summary agrees.

    The idea that you would be able, in the future, to speak to a simulation of someone who has passed on is not new.

  • Year 2035:
    *Billy receives a chat request from grandma-lily@iFaceAmaZoft.cn*

    Billy: Gram is that you?!
    Lily: Yes Billy, its me, your Grandmother!
    Billy: I've missed you .. but how is this possible?!
    Lily: I miss you too Billy, so please keep posting everything you do on iFaceAmaZoft Social.
    Lily: Then I can stay up to date with how you are doing, can you promise me that? I love you Billy!
    Billy: I love you too Gram, I promise I will!
    Lily: Actually, I noticed in the latest hologram you posted, that you don

  • Why do I get the impression that what will be delivered is a version of the subject so sanitized and "agenda compliant", perhaps even at the behest of the actual person, that the chatbot will hardly be unrecognizable to people who knew them...until time passes and reality is overwritten by the sanitized version. The living, breathing, sinning human being will be truly gone, while the deepfake lives on.

  • I'm sure it wouldn't surprise a lot of long-time Slashdot users to hear that Microsoft is engaged in necromancy.

  • ...technology to help the church fulfill its shallow promises of a computer-enhanced afterlife.

    https://m.imdb.com/title/tt064... [imdb.com] This was in 1987.

  • After all, someone has been trying this for years.

    Example: https://www.theguardian.com/te... [theguardian.com]

  • Those âsaka mfâ(TM)ers, at it again. Johnny Silverhand would fire them up with a small nuke for what they did to Alt!

  • That's my next patent!

    • Honestly, I've seen dumber ideas.

      • I can see a market. Let people have a chat with dead loved ones right at their graves.

        Makes you wonder what type of person might be in other graves, doesn't it?

        You could even check if the grave you plan to bury your mother in is in a "good neighbourhood" or if you should seek a different spot for her.

  • This patent is a bit not rightful for the paternity of the concept.
    We do research on this matter from 2010.

    Check ATAI, is what Microsoft patented.
    https://simplemachines.it/inde... [simplemachines.it]

    Here the proof from wayback machine of the longevity of the project (traced on 2016 and after) .
    https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org] .

    ATAI is just the peack of the iceber of a project with name Nwiw.
    https://simplemachines.it/inde... [simplemachines.it]

    ATAI is only it is only the tip of the iceberg of a project called Nwiw that could

  • Replika is an existing app which already does this. Written by a woman whose husband died.

  • It's a staple of Jack McDevitt's fiction. And I'm pretty sure he didn't invent the idea, either.

  • If a chat bot was created based on my interactions with Microsoft software, everyone who interacted with it would assume that I was a miserable, grumpy asshole. While it might be accurate for me, it might twist everyone else's personality to be the one used in a business setting. Imagine talking to your dead loved ones and they tell you "Going forward, I will continue to love you. Let's take this offline so we can re-calibrate our synergy and capitalize on market forces."

  • Microsoft confirmed for EVIL. Disrespecting the dead. Inflicting more suffering on surviving family members. I hope they get sued for emotional trauma over this.

  • This reminds me of the South Park episode "The Biggest Douche in the Universe" only its a chatbot, no human medium required. Progress!

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • Prior art [slashdot.org], courtesy of slashdot.

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