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from the uncanny-valley-meets-the-graveyard dept.
http://www.ajudaily.com/view/20200207175148638
Video discussed in the story is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oglnV2P_QBI (in Korean).
A special TV documentary that depicted the tearful reunion of a sorrow-stricken mother and her daughter, who died of a rare incurable disease at the age of seven, in the virtual world has touched the hearts of many viewers in South Korea.
"Maybe it's a real paradise," Jang Ji-sung, the mother of four children, said of the moment she met her deceased daughter, Nayeon. "I met Nayeon, who called me with a smile, for a very short time, but it's a very happy time. I think I've had the dream I've always wanted."
The MBC documentary titled "I Met You" aired on February 6. For eight months, the production team has used VR technology to implement Nayeon's face, body, and voice. The reunion took place in a park with memories of Jang and her daughter. The motion of a child model was recorded as motion capture and implemented on the monitor to reproduce the scene at a VR studio.
Nayeon, the third of Jang's children, passed away in 2016. The mother engraved Nayeon's name and birthday on her body to remember her daughter forever. Wearing a necklace with Nayeon's bone powder, she visits a charnel house once a month.
As a white butterfly flew and sat in one place, the sound of Nayeon's song was heard. Jang burst into tears when her daughter ran with the cry of "Mom" and said, "Where have you been, Mom? Did you think about me?"
Jang responded with a doleful voice, "I do all the time." As her daughter said, "I missed mom a lot," Jang replied, "I missed you, too." The mother was cautious to reach out to touch her daughter before Nayeon insisted, "mom, please hold my hand." Jang finally held her daughter's hand in her's with tears streaming down her face. Nayeon's father, brother and sister watched the encounter they've dreamed of at the side of the virtual stage, also crying.
Submitting without comment - I'll leave my comments in the comments -- FP
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday February 13 2020, @01:56AM (13 children)
This sounds a lot like encouraging someone to pick the scabs off their wounds, over and over.
It may sound callous, but reality is, the woman's daughter is gone. There is zero hope that she will ever talk to her daughter again, in this life. Get over it, move on, and put that energy into the offspring you still have.
Of course, if this has any chance of allowing the psychobabble community to diagnose more potential patients with more made-up conditions, there is a winner. The psychobabblers stand to make a lot of money, and gubbermint finds an excuse to manipulate more victims.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday February 13 2020, @02:18AM (3 children)
Whether or not it will be good therapy I can't say.
But this will be good business for the psych industry in the future, and for the loved ones who have the money, it will be an expensive addiction. Especially since a personality of the deceased could be extrapolated from a few character traits provided by the griever. It could literally allow a parent as described in the OP to see their dead child grow up over a period of years, using AI for aging and personality development. And with sufficient complexity, it could allow a whole family to interact with the dead.
Then once this technology is feasible enough to take home, the hackings will begin, and these things could either be held for ransom or hacked such that the dead's eyes will virtually bug out and they will start spitting blood all over the place.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Thursday February 13 2020, @02:35AM (2 children)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7sDT8jZ76VLV1u__krUutA [youtube.com]
Somewhere on that channel, there is a video that deals with this issue. Sorry, can't remember details, and I don't have time to search, but people are thinking about it, today.
(Score: 2) by pdfernhout on Friday February 14 2020, @02:13AM (1 child)
You're probably thinking of this sci-fi tear jerker presented by Dust: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BNLZp2iNIs [youtube.com]
The blurb:
"What if Wendy" by James A. Sims
As her deceased daughter's birthday approaches, Dr. Mara Stevens begins to ask herself, what if Wendy hadn't died?
WHAT IF WENDY takes place in a near future in which genetic engineering is the norm for couples looking to have a child. DR. MARA STEVENS, a case manager for a genetic engineering firm, leads an isolated, meticulous existence consumed by work and little else. But as her deceased daughter's seventh birthday approaches, Mara begins to ask herself, "what if Wendy hadn't died?" In opening this Pandora's box, Mara is faced with the debilitating grief she has suppressed for so long.
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 14 2020, @02:19AM
Yes, that's the one. It's a story repeated often enough throughout human history, but here, we have tech to make things worse or better. Nice catch!
And for the rest of you, it's a pleasant enough mini-movie to distract you for several minutes when you don't really want to tend to business.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by krishnoid on Thursday February 13 2020, @02:35AM (2 children)
Isn't it their freedom in a free country (wait a second ... checking ... *South* Korea, ok, cool) to grieve however works for them, and not in the way someone else thinks is appropriate? It's not like someone's forcing them to use it or shaming them into it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by barbara hudson on Thursday February 13 2020, @03:26AM (1 child)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday February 13 2020, @08:37AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Thursday February 13 2020, @03:13AM (3 children)
I wasn't sure why but the whole idea seemed not only Creepy, but Wrong to me. You pretty much said my feelings perfectly.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by barbara hudson on Thursday February 13 2020, @03:31AM (2 children)
Price increases? Pay it or your dead daughter gets it between the eyes. Mandatory upgrades so that it "ages." Now she needs a boy/girlfriend. You don't want her being lonely like you, do you? Oops - she's pregnant.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday February 14 2020, @01:17AM (1 child)
Even worse than that, imagine something out of "Surface Detail." Imagine "keep paying us, or you really will not like what happens to your precious daughter next time you log in," then on next login, the entire virtual landscape is red-hot metal and your virtual "daughter" is covered in full-thickness burns, being flayed alive and raped by demons, screaming at the top of her lungs for you to save her.
I do not put it past one of these assholes to think of something like that.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday February 14 2020, @01:45AM
There was a sci-fi story where people could visit AI copies of the dead, but they would gradually deteriorate on purpose to force people to accept the loss. The resolution would get worse, more grainy, the responses less relevant to the conversation, until it was just static.
The way people grieve over lost Facebook accounts instead of either just starting another one or abandoning Facebook is a symptom. So is people suing to try to get access to dead relatives email accounts - if they wanted you to have any particular email they would have BCC'd you. Accounts that aren't accessed within a year should be automatically deleted. So what if you are in a coma for 30 years - do you think that you want to communicate with all those strangers? It's like a bad 40-year high school reunion. Sure, I'd have a laugh because nobody would recognize me, but it's inevitable that some became alcoholics or druggies or whatever, and they should be free not to be humiliated by their former peers.
Besides, my worst bullies died of throat cancer, so no "do you still beat up women " confrontations. Bit of a bummer.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 3, Touché) by mhajicek on Thursday February 13 2020, @06:34AM (1 child)
We could have a program generate MDC posts for us...
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 13 2020, @09:54PM
Is he dead?