After Death Requests Technology Might Force Us To Make

Death is certain

All of us are mortal. All of us will die. We are born to eventually die. That’s the truth however hard it is to take.

Nobody will live forever. But we can immortalise ourselves in our work or by our deeds so that we get to live on this way.

Shakespeare is still widely read, quoted and appreciated centuries after he lived. The mesmerising works of great artists such as Rembrandt, Vincent Van Gogh, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci is still celebrated today.

“I always want to do music that inspires or influences another generation. You want what you create to live, be it sculpture or painting or music. Like Michelangelo, he said, “I know the creator will go, but his work survives. That is why to escape death, I attempt to bind my soul to my work.”

— Michael Jackson

Death is feared in many cultures of the world with the wishes of dead relatives being respected and fulfilled.

They have been many characters created to symbolise death and all it brings. The practices are death vary from culture to culture, and also change with the changing times. Global integration and advances in technology have helped shape such practices.

The acclaimed Netflix television series Black Mirror is not too far fetched from the reality we humans are currently living in or will be living in in the future. And it has also touched on the theme of technology and death.

Right now with the prevalence of social media, we are given the choice to decide what happens to our social media profiles after our death.

Personally, I would like mine to be deleted after I am gone. I don’t want anyone commenting on there when I cannot control it.

But there are more after death choices we might be forced to make in the current climate of advancements in technology.

Cryonics a controversial technology where people choose to have parts of themselves or their pets preserved after their death in hope that they could be brought back in an unknown future with the advances in technology has been there since the ’70s. It looks like a rip off to me though.

What after death requests will advances in technology force us to make?

Whether to be digitised or not

This one will be a case of life imitating art in the coming future. We learn a lot on this from the scenes in that Black Mirror episode where a grieving girlfriend gets a humanoid version of her boyfriend after he dies so that it can be his companion.

Things don’t go so well as the grieving female character realises over time that the humanness of her dead boyfriend cannot be replaced even by the most advanced personalised technology.

Because we tend to immortalise our lives on social media and other digital platforms, we leave a big footprint that can be used to recreate a version of ourselves after we are gone.

This is not a far fetched illusion as a lot of inventions that are in use today were once scenes in fictional sci-fi movies and television series.

Digitisation of persons may be in various ways. It can remain purely software or the software could be added to a doll-like humanoid thingy to create a version of you. It could be physically identical to you or not.

Would you like your spouse to purchase a humanoid version of yourself after your death to keep them company?

Would you like a humanoid version of you to be used to give your underage child comfort in the event that you die when they are still too young? It could sing like you and talk like you and that could help comfort them.

These are some of the questions we could find ourselves asking. And we might be forced to make such requests or prohibit such actions in the coming future.

Hologram or not

This one applies particularly for celebrities and public figures. But because of how rapidly technology is spreading, it might apply to all of us in the near future.

People from all over the world expressed mixed reactions recently when Kanye West presented his wife Kim Kardashian with a birthday present of a hologram of her father that bore emotional and personal messages to her.

Some complained that Kanye manipulated Kim’s feelings by adding the bit about him being ‘the best husband’. They mentioned that he was putting words in his father in law’s mouth and most people wouldn’t appreciate that being done to them. It’s like he created that version of him to suit his purposes.

Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston fans were not very excited either when holograms of their idols were used to entertain them years after their deaths. In Jackson’s case, they complained that it was too robotic. It couldn’t pull out the moves like the King of Pop could and for a man who died at age 50, the hologram was not a representation of him as it’s physic looked too young.

In Houston’s case, they said they just couldn’t feel it. It could never compare to Houston’s delivery and its movements were limited to only hand gestures that failed miserably at attempting to mimic the star.

As the advances in technology keep coming, and as they become more widespread and more affordable, we might find us everyday people making such decisions as to whether to allow those we leave behind to make holograms of us or not.

Arguments against

The arguments against such technologies can be varied.

Some people can argue that they go against their moral, ethical and religious beliefs.

Christians and other related mosaic religions believe that they are on a journey to heaven and that life on earth is a mere path to their eternal home. Why would you want to keep a version of them here they could ask?

Ethically, the celebrities being turned into holograms after their deaths did not consent to it as the technology did not exist in their lifetimes and were therefore not aware of it for them to consent to or deny them. Are their estates ignoring the wishes of their families, fans and the opposing public to exploit these personalities for money after their deaths?

As humans, we become stronger by moving on and letting go of the things that hurt us. Such technologies will make people to keep holding on. Are they beneficial in the grieving and healing process or are they harmful?

Also, the universe is built on recycling and regeneration. A plant dies or sheds its leaves which are then transformed to manure that helps other plants and animals to thrive. We die so that others; the stronger and younger ones may live. Are we disturbing nature and the natural order of things by hanging on to these things, however ‘not real' they may be?

What is the environmental impact of all these technologies? Based on how quickly we are adopting new technologies, we might require a lot of hardware and software to store all this data to immortalise ourselves digitally. All the 7 billion of us! How will that impact our environment in the long run?

Arguments for

Supporters of such technologies can lay down very concise arguments.

First of all human cultures change with changes in time. Not very long ago, some cultures in the world didn’t even bury their dead. When you lose someone you love, you want to hold on to anything of them that you can. And technology is helping grieving persons do this by making it more interactive. They give you something you can hear and even feel or touch.

You can’t fight technological advances or cultural adaptations, can you?

I think it all rests on personal grounds. We can only hope that the requests of the dead even in such times will be met and respected just like they have always been whether they want technology involved or not.

Humans have always wanted to live forever anyway. By creating statues of themselves and of their heroes, embellishing stories of immortals, creating immortal beings such as gods, angels, and demons, bearing children so that they live on through them and by creating hit songs about being forever young and about living forever.

I guess technology just came to finally deliver immortality to them - at least a version of it.