Tag: death

MICROSOFT PATENT SHOWS PLANS TO REVIVE DEAD LOVED ONES AS CHATBOTS

Microsoft has been granted a patent that would allow the company to make a chatbot using the personal information of deceased people.  

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.

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Michigan Rejects 846 Mailed Ballots ‘Because the Voter Was Dead’

Michigan clerks rejected 10,694 mailed ballots during the August 4 primary.

Of those, 846 ballots were not accepted “because the voter was dead,” the Detroit News reported.

Further, 2,225 ballots were denied because there was no voter signature on the envelope, and 1,111 votes were discarded because the voter moved to a new address after submitting the ballot. The state claimed the dead voters died between the time they submitted the ballot and when it was counted.

Michigan’s largest city, Detroit, received 820 ballots that were ultimately rejected, according to the paper.

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Yale scientists restore cellular function in 32 dead pig brains

The image of an undead brain coming back to live again is the stuff of science fiction. Not just any science fiction, specifically B-grade sci fi. What instantly springs to mind is the black-and-white horrors of films like Fiend Without a Face. Bad acting. Plastic monstrosities. Visible strings. And a spinal cord that, for some reason, is also a tentacle?

But like any good science fiction, it’s only a matter of time before some manner of it seeps into our reality. This week’s Naturepublished the findings of researchers who managed to restore function to pigs’ brains that were clinically dead. At least, what we once thought of as dead.

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