Resurrecting the Dead Will Create a Burden for the Living复活逝者将对生者造成负担

塔玛拉·尼斯/文　俞月圆/译

AI technologies promise more chatbots and replicas of people who have passed. But giving voice to the dead comes at a human cost.

人工智能技術有望带来更多的聊天机器人和逝者“复制品”，但让逝者发声需要生者付出代价。

Giving enough data， one can feel like its possible to keep dead loved ones alive. With ChatGPT and other powerful large language models， it is feasible to create a more convincing chatbot of a dead person. But doing so， especially in the face of scarce resources and inevitable decay， ignores the massive amounts of labor that go into keeping the dead alive online.

只要有足够的数据，人们就会觉得死去的亲人能够继续活着。有了ChatGPT和其他厉害的大型语言模型，就可以造出更接近逝者的聊天机器人，但这种做法——尤其是考虑到资源稀缺，衰亡难免——忽略了让逝者存活于线上所需付出的大量劳动。

Someone always has to do the hard work of maintaining automated systems， as demonstrated by the overworked and underpaid annotators and content moderators behind generative AI， and this is also true where replicas of the dead are concerned. From managing a digital estate after gathering passwords and account information， to navigating a slowly-decaying inherited smart home， digital death care practices require significant upkeep. Content creators depend on the backend labor of caregivers and a network of human and nonhuman entities， from specific operating systems and devices to server farms1， to keep digital heirlooms alive across generations. Updating formats and keeping those electronic records searchable， usable， and accessible requires labor， energy， and time. This is a problem for archivists and institutions， but also for individuals who might want to preserve the digital belongings of their dead kin.

维护自动化系统的艰苦工作总要有人来做，比如生成式人工智能背后的注释者和内容审核者，他们加班加点地工作却得不到合理的报酬。复制逝者所涉及的工作也是如此。从收集密码和账户信息后管理数字资产，到设法操作慢慢衰亡的智能家居遗产，数字殡葬服务需要做大量的维护工作。要想将数字遗物一代代传下去，内容创作者就要依赖护理人员的后台劳动，以及由人类和非人类实体（比如特定的操作系统和设备，还有服务器场）构成的一整个网络。更新数据存储格式并确保这些电子记录永远可搜索、可使用、可访问，需要付出劳力、精力和时间。这不仅是档案管理人员和管理机构面临的问题，也是希望为已故亲属保存数字财产的个人面临的问题。

And even with all of this effort， devices， formats， and websites also die， just as we frail humans do. Despite the fantasy of an automated home that can run itself in perpetuity or a website that can survive for centuries， planned obsolescence2 means these systems will most certainly decay. As people tasked with maintaining the digital belongings of dead loved ones can attest， there is a stark difference between what people think they want， or what they expect others to do， and the reality of what it means to help technologies persist over time. The mortality of both people and technology means that these systems will ultimately stop working.

即使付出了这么多努力，设备、数据储存格式和网站仍然会像我们这些脆弱的人类一样死去。尽管人们幻想拥有可以永久运行的自动化住宅，或者可以存活几个世纪的网站，但计划性报废策略意味着这些系统肯定会衰亡。负责维护已故亲人数字财产的人可以证实，人们认为自己想要的东西（或者说他们期望别人做到的事情）与帮助技术长期存续下去的现实内涵之间，存在天壤之别。人和技术的寿命都有限，因此这些系统终将停止工作。

Early attempts to create AI-backed replicas of dead humans certainly bear this out. Intellitars Virtual Eternity， based in Scottsdale， Arizona， launched in 2008 and used images and speech patterns to simulate a humans personality， perhaps filling in for someone at a business meeting or chatting with grieving loved ones after a persons death. Writing for CNET3， a reviewer dubbed Intellitar the product “most likely to make children cry.” But soon after the company went under in 2012， its website disappeared. LifeNaut， a project backed by the transhumanist4 organization Terasem—which is also known for creating BINA48， a robotic version of Bina Aspen， the wife of Terasems founder—will purportedly combine genetic and biometric information with personal datastreams to simulate a full-fledged human being once technology makes it possible to do so. But the projects site itself relies on outmoded Flash software， indicating that the true promise of digital immortality is likely far off and will require updates along the way.

制造基于人工智能的逝者復制品的早期尝试无疑证明了这一点。总部位于亚利桑那州斯科茨代尔的Intellitar公司于2008年推出了一款名为“虚拟永生”的产品。该产品利用图像和语音模型来模仿人的音容笑貌，也许可以在某人去世后代替他参加商务会议，或者与其悲伤的亲人聊天。一位评论员在为CNET网站写的文章中说，“虚拟永生”是“最有可能把小孩吓哭”的产品。2012年，Intellitar公司倒闭，没过多久其网站也消失了。倡导超人类主义的组织Terasem因创造了BINA48（依照Terasem创始人的妻子比娜·阿斯彭制造的机器人）而闻名。该组织资助了一个名为LifeNaut的项目，声称一旦技术成熟，该项目可以把基因和生物识别信息与个人数据流结合起来，模拟出一个形神俱备的人类。不过，该项目的网站本身还依赖于过时的Flash软件，这表明真正实现数字永生可能还遥遥无期，而且需要不断升级更新。

With generative AI， there is speculation that we might be able to create even more convincing facsimiles of humans， including dead ones. But this requires vast resources， including raw materials， water， and energy， pointing to the folly of maintaining chatbots of the dead in the face of catastrophic climate change. It also has astronomical financial costs： ChatGPT purportedly costs $700，000 a day to maintain. This is not a sustainable model for immortality.

有了生成式人工智能，有人就猜测我们也许能够制造出更接近逝者乃至全人类的复制品，但这需要大量资源，包括原材料、水和能源。由此可见，在灾难性的气候变化之下，维护逝者聊天机器人是何等愚蠢。这种做法还会带来数额惊人的经济成本。据说ChatGPT每天的维护费用高达70万美元。这不是一种可持续的永生模式。

There is also the question of who should have the authority to create these replicas in the first place： a close family member， an employer， a company？ Not everyone would want to be reincarnated as a chatbot. In a 2021 piece for the San Francisco Chronicle， the journalist Jason Fagone recounts the story of a man named Joshua Barbeau who produced a chatbot version of his long-dead fiancée Jessica using OpenAIs GPT-3. It was a way for him to cope with death and grief， but it also kept him invested in a close romantic relationship with a person who was no longer alive. This was also not the way that Jessicas other loved ones wanted to remember her; family members opted not to interact with the chatbot.

另一个问题是：先不说别的，谁有权决定创造逝者复制品——是近亲、雇主，还是某家公司？并非每个人都愿意转世成聊天机器人。在《旧金山纪事报》2021年的一篇报道中，记者贾森·法戈内讲了一个故事：一个叫乔舒亚·巴尔博的人以他逝世已久的未婚妻杰茜卡為原型，用OpenAI公司开发的GPT-3制造了一个聊天机器人。这是他应对死亡与悲伤的一种方式，却也让他为了与一个逝者维持亲密浪漫关系而不断付出。杰茜卡的其他亲人也不希望以这种方式记住她，她的家属宁可不与聊天机器人互动。

In the end， though， it is developers and companies， not loved ones， who have control over how long chatbots persist. The experimental program used to create Jessica Bot planned mortality into the system; to save on operating costs， the developer intentionally built it to decay and die. Barbeau had to be judicious with his time with Jessica， and stopped interacting with the chatbot before its battery drained too far so he wouldnt have to directly confront another form of death.

不过，最终掌控聊天机器人存活多久的是开发者和开发公司，而不是逝者的亲人。用来制造杰茜卡机器人的试验程序在系统中设计了有限的寿命。为了节约运营成本，开发者有意让杰茜卡机器人走向衰败和死亡。巴尔博不得不小心利用与杰茜卡机器人相处的时间，他在电池快要耗尽之前停止与其互动，这样他就不必直面另一种形式的死亡。

In some cases， developers might want to believe that chatbots can go on indefinitely， helping the dead replace living workers altogether. For example， the SAG-AFTRA5 strike raises questions about the personality rights of the dead， as generative AI can potentially be used to revive dead actors. Similar issues have already played out with various deepfake versions of dead celebrities， including the controversial use of Anthony Bourdains deepfaked voice in a documentary about his life， and in a more mundane， low-tech case， a professors recorded lectures allowing him to continue working at a university after his death. But such re-creations， in addition to potentially harming living workers， may also upset the surviving loved ones of the dead and cause new bureaucratic headaches for them as they attempt to seek control over the replicas of their dead family members. AI versions of people may be created without the knowledge or consent of living kin.

在某些情况下，开发者可能愿意相信聊天机器人可以无限期维持下去，帮助死去的人完全取代活着的劳动者。例如，美国演员工会罢工引出了有关逝者人格权的问题，因为生成式人工智能有可能被用来“复活”故去的演员。类似的问题已经在各种深度伪造的已故名人身上出现。比如，一部关于安东尼·波登生平的纪录片使用了他的深度伪造声音，从而引发争议。还有一个更贴近生活、技术含量更低的案例：一位教授的讲座录音使他得以在去世后继续在大学工作。但是，这种再现不仅有可能伤害活着的劳动者，还可能会让逝者的遗属感到不安，害他们在试图寻求掌控逝去家人的复制品时，遇上官僚主义带来的新麻烦。人工智能复制出来的人可能是在活着的亲属不知情或者不同意的情况下制造出来的。

The revival of the dead through AI reveals the power relations， infrastructures， and networked labor behind all forms of digital production. We can create lifelike replicas of the dead， but these replicas rely on the work of the living to persist： As is the case with digital legacies in general， someone has to pay for domain names， delete spam messages， answer emails to dead accounts， update file formats， or move files from one hard drive to another as websites and companies disappear. For those who are left behind to care indef-initely for these creations， the psychological costs may be too much to bear.

借助人工智能复活逝者，揭示了所有形式的数字化生产背后的权力关系、底层结构与网络化劳动。我们可以制造出栩栩如生的逝者复制品，但这些复制品依赖生者的劳动而存在。和处理一般的数字遗产一样，必须有人支付域名费用、删除垃圾邮件、回复逝者账户收到的电子邮件、更新文件格式，或者在网站或公司消失前将文件从一个硬盘转移到另一个硬盘。对于那些要无限期照顾这些复制品的人来说，心理代价可能大到难以承受。

（译者为“《英语世界》杯”翻译大赛获将者）

1服务器场是在单个场点的机架上安装的通过网络设备连接在一起的一组服务器，用以满足对于远大于单台机器的处理能力的需求。  2计划性报废指一种控制产品寿命以鼓励购买者替换产品的策略。

3美国知名科技网站。  4超人类主义是一场国际性的文化和智力运动，其最终目标是通过开发和广泛使用技术来极大地提高人类的智力、体力和心理能力，从根本上改变人类的状况。拥护超人类主义的思想家研究可以克服人类基本局限性的新兴技术有什么潜在的好处和危险，同时也研究开发和使用这些技术所涉及的伦理问题。

5 = The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists美国演员工会。