How Amazon Hopes to Bring Your Dead Relatives Back to Life

Alexa could soon sound like a deceased relative. But should it?

Image Credit: Amazon

For those of us who know what it's like to grieve, we know how difficult it is to move on—especially if the loss was abrupt. In many ways, it can be a terrifying experience to realize you're starting to forget the little things about your loved ones, including their voice.

With grief being a universal human experience, many of us would give anything to hear the voices of our loved ones again, even for a moment. For this reason, it's no wonder why Amazon announced its plan to release an Alexa feature which could help people move on.

Amazon's Alexa Can Sound Like Your Deceased Loved One

According to a Reuters report, Amazon is developing a system that lets Alexa mimic human voices. At a Las Vegas conference, Amazon's Rohit Prasad shared how Amazon's virtual assistant, could potentially mimic the voice of our loved ones using only 60 seconds of audio.

During the pandemic, Prasad said that "so many of us have lost someone we love." With this, Amazon is finding new ways to "make the memories last" with Alexa.

In a bid to visualize how the feature could be used, Amazon's demo included a portrayal of a child asking, "Alexa, can grandma finish reading me The Wizard of Oz?" Afterward, Alexa was shown to modulate its voice to sound like the child's grandmother.

Amazon has not officially released a date for when the voice mimicking feature rolls out. However, while the demo did tug a few heartstrings, some skeptics are not sure if the feature will be limited to just helping people get some closure.

For years, people have been cautioning about all the ways that AI is dangerous. But while there are many common myths about artificial intelligence that isn't true, there are some threats that are very real.

What Amazon's Voice Mimicking Feature Means for Users

In recent times, the subject of voice mimicking has been hotly debated with the rise of deep fake technology and artificial intelligence networks gaining a degree of sentience. In addition, many tech companies have already willingly limited access to their voice mimicking technology to avoid a variety of risks such as identity theft and fraud.

However, only time will tell if Amazon's attempt to use voice mimicking technology will really be used to ease the pain of losing a loved one or just be another tool that bad actors can use to take advantage of other people.

While losing a loved one is a painful experience, there may be a better way to immortalize their likeness, which doesn't include Amazon's assistant.