Microsoft patented a chatbot that allows you to talk to dead people. It was too troubling for production

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A patent issued to Microsoft (MSFT) described last month a method for creating a conversation chatbot modeled on a specific person – a ‘past or present entity … such as a friend, a family member, an acquaintance, a celebrity, a fictional character, a historical figure’, according to the application to the US Patent and Trademark Office.

The technology is reminiscent of a fictional app in the dystopian TV series “Black Mirror” that allowed a character to continue chatting with her boyfriend after he died in an accident by extracting information from his social media.

Do you want to talk music with David Bowie? Or do you get some wisdom from your late grandmother? This tool would theoretically make that possible. But don’t get too excited, or panic, for that matter – the company has no plans to turn the technology into a real product.

Tim O’Brien, Microsoft’s general manager of AI programs, said in a statement tweet on Friday that he “confirmed there is no plan for this”. In a separate tweet, he also echoed the sentiment of other Internet users who commented on the technology, saying, “Yes, it’s troubling.”

This is how the technology would work if it were actually built into a product. According to the patent information, the tool would collect “social data” such as images, social media posts, messages, voice data and written letters from the chosen person. That data would be used to train a chatbot to “talk and communicate in the personality of the specific person.” It can also rely on external data sources, in case the user asks a question to the bot that cannot be answered based on the person’s social data.

‘Conversation in a specific person’s personality can include determining and / or using conversation characteristics of the specific person such as style, diction, tone, voice, intention, sentence / dialogue length and complexity, subject matter and consistency’, as well as using behavioral characteristics such as interests and opinions and demographic information such as age, gender and occupation, the patent states.

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In some cases, the tool can even be used to apply speech and facial recognition algorithms to recordings, images and videos to create a voice and a 2D or 3D model of the person to enhance the chatbot.

While Microsoft has no plans to make a product of the technology, the patent indicates that the possibilities for artificial intelligence have gone beyond creating fake people to creating virtual models of real people.
The application for the Microsoft patent was filed in April 2017, which O’Brien said on Twitter predates the “AI ethics assessments we’re doing today.” Today, the company has an Office of Responsible AI and an AI, Ethics, and Effects in Engineering and Research Committee, which help oversee its inventions.

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