Enshittification reaches beyond the grave
They’re giving interviews advocating for tougher gun laws, such as when the family of Joaquin Oliver, a victim of the 2018 Parkland school shooting in Florida, created a beanie-wearing AI avatar of him and had it speak with journalist Jim Acosta in July. “This is just another advocacy tool to create that urgency of making things change,” Manuel Oliver, Joaquin’s father, told NPR.
And in May, a bearded AI avatar of Chris Pelkey, the deceased victim of a road rage incident in Arizona, gave a video impact statement at the sentencing of the man who fatally shot Pelkey. Pelkey’s family created the deadbot. “I feel that that was genuine,” said Judge Todd Lang after hearing the AI generated impact statement. He then handed down the maximum sentence.
Eventually, maybe you’ll be having a nice chat with your dead grandma, and she’ll try to convince you to buy crypto.