AI Afterlives

Through case studies, this book highlights the importance of viewing the past as open to adaptation and manipulation, particularly in relation to external corporate interests.

AI Afterlives offers the first empirically informed investigation of how algorithms and automation are being used to ‘revive’ media fragments from the past, from animating old photographs of our ancestors, to creating deathbots, or using the likeness of deceased actors in films. It draws on a series of unique and innovatively designed datasets to trace the ethical, emotional, mnemonic and political dimensions of creating synthetic pasts.

Situated at the intersection of Digital Memory, New Media and Critical Algorithm Studies, the book speaks to a range of pressing concerns about what futures our uses of AI will facilitate, what ethical challenges these systems suggest in the present, and how our relationship to the past is oriented and experienced.