A terminally ill man named Michael Bommer is preparing to leave a lasting digital presence for his family with the help of Eternos.life. The AI company is helping 61-year-old Bommer create a digital identity that captures his voice, personality, and memories. This initiative aims to enable his family to interact with his digital persona after his passing.
AI company Eternos.life is helping a terminally ill man named Michael Bommer to leave a lasting digital presence for his family.Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Preserving Michael Bommer's Essence With Advanced AI Technology
Eternos.life has integrated advanced technologies to preserve Michael Bommer's essence, including data capture, transcription, and chat functionalities. Bommer expressed gratitude for the opportunity, noting that it allows him to remain present for future generations in a unique way.
According to Interesting Engineering, the AI program started by analyzing 300 sentences to learn and replicate his voice. It then processed details from 150 of his life stories, focusing on the core values and wisdom he wished to impart.
Boomer compared the AI's storage of his information to a cloud-based database. This system allows the AI to generate responses by piecing together segments from stored recordings whenever a question is asked.
The AI has been designed to intelligently reflect the values and characteristics of the person it's based on, which impressed Bommer and his family during initial tests.
During the early stages of testing, Bommer shared that his wife remarked on the AI's accuracy, noting that it accurately captured his voice. He also highlighted the AI's ability to speak German and English fluently.
His digital representation encapsulates memories spanning his life, family, and career, allowing him to share stories and provide guidance. According to reports, it can also convey heartfelt messages, such as bidding his wife goodnight with words of love and wishes for peaceful sleep.
Unlike other AI programs focused on preserving life experiences, Eternos.life stands out for its intuitive reasoning and effective information selection. It processes a wealth of data and can generate new content based on the insights it gathers.
The next stage for Bommer's digital counterpart involves integrating photographs and videos into a cloud-based platform. This advancement aims to enrich his digital persona with visual elements, enhancing its functionality as an artificially intelligent neural network.
When Michael Boomer, a software designer based in Berlin, Germany, revealed his terminal illness on social media, it caught the attention of Robert LoCascio, co-founder of Eternos.life.
As a colleague and old friend, LoCascio reached out to Boomer and offered to preserve his legacy using AI technology, which Boomer eagerly accepted. Creating a digital persona like this typically takes weeks to months, but Boomer's urgent situation compelled the Eternos.life team to work tirelessly to capture his essence swiftly.
Their goal was to document memories, preserve Boomer's core values, and facilitate ongoing connections with his family. Eternos.life aims to provide individuals with a platform to create a digital memoir or "creative will," distinct from traditional estate planning.
This allows people to articulate what they find meaningful about their lives and ensure it endures beyond their physical presence. For Boomer, a father of four sons, developing his digital self became a bonding experience with his children.
He hoped this digital legacy would continue to connect him with future generations, including his grandchildren. Boomer views this initiative as a tool to pass on his knowledge and experiences, emphasizing that it's not about achieving eternal life but ensuring that future generations inherit his wisdom.
