Where once knowledge of the ancestors was through busts or pictures in dusty black and white, today there are those who are working to make this relationship as direct as possible. From Japan to the United States, the dream of immortality - at least digitally - no longer seems so impossible. Multiply it plans to build twin digitized able to transmit the teachings of a lifetime for the children of the grandchildren of their grandchildren. The idea is to create avatars - for now, only computer in the future who knows - as do a back up of its own memory, so as to entrust the task of extending the self after death.
Strain by the magazine New Scientist, the network there are already several companies that offer this type of service, known as the "creating mind" file ". Use them is simple: just have a little 'free time, a good dose of patience and the desire to transform bytes in the key moments of our lives. The result is not always guaranteed, it's an alter ego who, while living in the computer, learn to speak, move and behave like us. There are also companies that go further, anticipating scenarios in mind which files and file bio you can join to create something very similar to a clone biologico.
Il back up della memoria. La creazione (gratuita) del mind file è pratica corrente su siti come Lifenaut 1e CyBeRev 2. Si tratta di compagnie americane la cui "mission" è esplorare le possibilità di immagazzinamento della vita in rappresentazioni computerizzate realistiche, vale a dire avatar. Lifenaut, ad esempio, consente di caricare in un archivio digitale foto, video e documenti personali che verranno conservati per generazioni. Partendo da una foto preferibilmente inespressiva, il software la anima in modo da farla parlare, ammiccare e sbattere le ciglia. Agli utenti spetta il compito di raccontarsi attraverso test psicologici, autodescrizioni e resoconti vari, il tutto "taggando" a mo' di Facebook luoghi, date and people.
"In this way - explain the leaders - you help the avatar to organize his / our memories." It 'also provides for the inclusion of pieces of correspondence, diary entries and contributions of friends and relatives, to ensure that the digital alter ego is not only a reflection of what would be wanted. CyBeRev, however, bring its clients to thousands of questions inspired by the work of American sociologist William Sims Bainbridge. The aim is to capture hopes, values \u200b\u200band attitudes by asking people to imagine the world in a hundred years. "This is a time consuming process," warns Lori Rhodes, founder of CyBeRev. "Dedicating an hour a day every day, it takes cinque anni per completare tutte le domande. Sapendo che più si va a fondo nelle risposte, più il mind file sarà una copia fedele della nostra mente".
"Mind file" in presa diretta. Sulla scia di LifeLogger (sistema multimediale di blog e social networking creato da Orientations Network S. B. nel 2004) alcuni programmi si propongono di catturare in presa diretta il fluire di esperienze e ricordi. Un esempio è MyLifeBits 3, il progetto con cui Gordon Bell, ricercatore Microsoft, sta cercando di fermare nel tempo tutto ciò che lo riguarda, dalle telefonate di lavoro alle immagini riprese da una videocamera-ombra che lo accompagna nella sua giornata. Un team della University of Southampton (Regno Unito) si sta ingegnando per raffinare ancora di più questo principio, facendo corrispondere alle istantanee informazioni ricavate dal proprio diario, dai social network e dalle coordinate GPS in il soggetto si è mosso. In prospettiva, i ricercatori vorrebbero riuscire a integrare questi dati con misure fisiologiche, come ad esempio il ritmo del battito cardiaco, così da associare le emozioni ai fatti.
Lavorando sulle facce. Uno degli ostacoli più grandi per arrivare ad avatar "credibili" è la questione dei volti. Come fare a creare un modello in grado di rendere anche solo l'idea delle infinite sfaccettature che compongono un sorriso? A complicare la faccenda è il fenomeno noto come "uncanny valley" (letteralmente "valle perturbante"), termine utilizzato by robotics pioneer Masahiro Mori of Japan to describe the feelings of revulsion and anxiety that are generated in the presence of mind automata very similar, but not quite equal to humans.
As New Scientist points out in this area has the highest results they achieved the 4 Image Metrics, California-based company specializes in making faces for digital film and video games. Starting from a series of high-resolution photographs of the face of a person (each characterized by different emotional nuances), engineers were able to extrapolate the numerical differences between an expression and another, and then reproduce them in digital format. They did, for example, the avatar of the American Emily O'Brien (video). In 2008, his digital alter ego was presented at the ACM Siggraph conference in Los Angeles, earning the praise of fans of animation and more.
life in society. With regard to social interaction, the pilot study is 5 Lifelike Project, a collaboration between University of Central Florida (Orlando) and University of Illinois (Chicago). Since 2007 a group of researchers is working to build a realistic avatar of Alexander Schwarzkopf, former director of the U.S. National Science Foundation. The data collected showed that this in which human beings pay more attention to evaluating the credibility of an avatar is not so much the physical details, but rather idiosyncratic movements that make each person unique. This is why the priority is the small gestures, the arch of the eyebrows, the tip of the head with one hand as a sign of empathy, the subtle flexing of muscles at the corners of the nose.
A good avatar, of course, must also be able to speak with knowledge of the facts: this involved the chatbot software, programs that simulate conversations between human beings basic analysis of the context. Lifenaut, for example, uses Jabberwacky, a type of particularly advanced chatbot program that suits the individual user. Born from the study of conversations between millions of people since 1997, the software has twice won the award thanks to realism LOEBNERI of his dialogues.
Avatar organic. The jump from a digital I remember, speaks and tells a physical avatar in the flesh still belongs to science fiction, but some have already started thinking about it. Generate a human being by putting together the "bio file" and "mind file": this is, ultimately, the long-term goal of programs like Lifenaut. These include the back up of the brain into a clone generated with its own cells. The more motivated they can start the process right now: after filling out a format, the company sends the customer's home a bottle of mouthwash, and these, after use, returned to the sender with a sample of his saliva, whose cells are cryopreserved in liquid nitrogen at a temperature of -197 ° C. Being a successful business in doubt - and ethics laws could continue to exist in the future - the company is asking for a small daily contribution protection (1 dollar a day) or a one-time payment of about $ 9,000. Trifles for those who are willing to do even madness to escape death. Giulia
Belardelli
www.repubblica.it
