“Eternal You” - Film Review
Thirty-one years ago, Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Jurassic Park roared onto the silver screen. For those who have lived under a rock for the last few decades, it’s based on a book about scientists who create a theme park populated with living dinosaurs. One of the film’s skeptics says, "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." That sentiment is a warning that no one in the thirty-one years since has taken. Most recently, it’s the individuals behind the growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) who haven’t heeded this warning. The documentary Eternal You dives into the uncharted waters of digital immortality.
People love to say that anything posted on the internet is there forever, but what does that mean for someone after they die? Is a person’s digital footprint a good indicator of who they were? Can you distill the essence of what was once a living and breathing person into a series of ones and zeroes? These questions are at the heart of Eternal You. The documentary looks at the emergence of a new industry that promises life after death through digital means with the help of AI. Project December, one of the companies featured in the documentary, promises to “simulate the dead.” For a small fee, you can connect with an AI bot that allows you to have a conversation with anyone. Even someone who’s no longer alive. Eternal You questions the ethical, moral, and technological implications of this quickly growing and unregulated industry.
courtesy of BEETZ BROTHERS FILM PRODUCTION
Americans in particular are not good with grief. We struggle to share emotions with our loved ones and shut down in the face of loss. For millennia, people around the world have turned to religion to find comfort in what happens after we die, but that balm no longer works for many. Perhaps technology can tell us something that prayer and religion cannot. With all the technological strides that humanity has made, it’s no surprise that mortality is the next hurdle scientists and the tech industry want to overcome. Like the Jurassic Park quote, these people have spent so much time working through whether or not their idea is possible that they haven’t stopped to consider the ramifications of their work. They see “digital immortality” as an inevitable money-making industry and they want their cut as one of the first to offer a look into the after-life.
“Will we strike that balance between technological innovation and our ethical, moral responsibility?” asks one of the people featured in Eternal You. It’s almost comical to think that there’s a chance humans will find the necessary balance. Restraint isn’t one of our greatest strengths. Arguably, it’s one of greatest weaknesses, especially when we’re faced with grief and loss. These emotions are all-consuming and isolating, which often leads to unhealthy, unbalanced decisions. Eternal You doesn’t shy away from the harmful side effects these AI programs can have for people who are grieving. As one of the documentary’s tech critics says, “It’s how to lose them better. Not pretend they're still here.” These unchecked AI programs are bandaids rather than a confrontation of our shared fear of the unknown.
courtesy of BEETZ BROTHERS FILM PRODUCTION
The paranoid, technology-focused anthology series Black Mirror made quite a few episodes about desperate people who replaced their lost loved ones with avatars. One would think that if a breakthrough tech idea was featured in Black Mirror, it might be a cause for concern. Eternal You shows how little thought AI pioneers have given to the consequences of what they’ve unleashed into the world. One says that he feels he can’t be held responsible for what his AI says because the living person interacting with it is an adult and can handle themselves. What they’re choosing to ignore is that the people using their tech are in the midst of a profoundly distressing time in their lives and are extremely vulnerable. You cannot create this technology and then wash your hands of it.
The final scene of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) talking with Albert Einstein (Tom Conti). Oppenheimer asks if Einstein remembers their conversation about the very real possibility that if they’re successful in inventing the atomic bomb, they’re dooming humanity. Einstein says he remembers and asks why Oppenheimer is mentioning it now. The final line of the film shows Oppenheimer horrified as he says, “I believe we did.” Eternal You isn’t about atomic bombs, but the weight of AI’s effect on humanity is equally worrisome. Intrinsically, a relationship cannot be digitized. It is the ineffable human connection that exists in the real world that makes these relationships meaningful. Eternal You is a stark, worrisome look at what lies ahead should our lives become even more rooted in technology than they already are.
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