Can artificial intelligence really summon dead relatives back from beyond the grave?
A growing number of people are trying to find out, with pioneers such as inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil using artificial intelligence to recreate lost relatives.
Kurzweil’s attempts to ‘bring back’ his father – who died when Kurzweil was 22 – using AI began more than 10 years ago and are chronicled this year in a comic book by Kurzweil’s daughter Amy.
Kurzweil created a ‘replicant’ of his father by feeding an artificial intelligence system with his father’s letters, essays and musical compositions.
He now has even more ambitious plans to bring his father back to life using nanotechnology and DNA from his father’s buried bones.
Hellbound and Down 