The Tale of Metaverse Immortality! How do People Live After Dying?

Dead individuals may now be brought back to life utilizing a combination of the metaverse, augmented reality, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.

Consider the possibility of seeing your deceased loved ones again. The need to reconnect with those we've lost is as natural as breathing, so it's no wonder that designers and engineers have begun to investigate how humans deal with death, as well as how technologically resurrects the deceased. Humans and robots are developing a new civilization. In recent years, technological breakthroughs have fuelled a slew of efforts providing various shades of virtual immortality, ranging from virtual reality (VR) and metaverse to artificial intelligence (AI). The digital afterlife – in the metaverse, one may build avatars of deceased individuals and resurrect them (virtual life). But is this correct, and do we need it?

A new civilization is emerging between (wo)man and machine. The digital afterlife — avatars we've formed over time, images and accounts we've amassed, connections and messages we've shared — is testing our beliefs about life and death. And it's true: as the most contemporary kind of a 'hereafter,' the internet will outlive us all. The traces you leave behind will outlive you and stay visible and palpable for those who mourn and remember you. Your smartphone, which is typically worn on the body like jewelry and is full to the brim with experiences, emotions, ideas, and feelings, will play an important role in their grief process. A wide range of innovations may be noted that make advantage of these hopes, which are fundamentally as old as mankind but have taken on new forms.

Somnium Space and 'live forever

Somnium Space, a metaverse world version, featured the 'Live Forever' option, which allows you to become eternal and communicate with your loved ones even after they die. Artur Sychov, CEO and Founder of Somnium Space, had the concept following his father's tragic death. A metaverse company is providing the opportunity to 'live forever in its virtual environment even after physical death. Somnium Space has revealed intentions to provide its users with 'immortality' with the addition of a new 'Live Forever' option. Although this appears to be a scene from a Black Mirror episode, the business claims it may achieve "metaverse immortality." Anyone who wants to 'live forever must submit Somnium Space with comprehensive personal information. Somnium Space is a virtual environment where avatars may own land, sell things, and interact. This metaverse environment is now available to the general public via Steam. Somnium Space's CEO and founder, Artur Sychov, recently announced to Vice his ambitions to create a 'Live Forever' mode. "If I die—and I have this data collected—people can come or my kids can come in, and they can have a dialogue with my avatar, with my actions, with my voice," he told the outlet. You will meet the individual. And you might not realize that it's AI for the first 10 minutes of speaking with that individual. That is the intention." Sychov's Live Forever mode was inspired by his father's untimely demise from an aggressive type of cancer. Sychov thinks that dead loved ones will be able to communicate with you through their avatar in the metaverse long after they have died in real life. The goal is for your eternal avatar to move, talk, and act exactly like you. The Live Forever mode is not yet available on Somnium Space, and anyone interested in trying it must opt in and pays.

Somnium Space has also invested in and collaborated with Teslasuit, an unconnected company to Elon Musk that is developing a full-body haptic suit for virtual reality. According to Sychov, the suit will not only provide electrical impulses equivalent to human touch to anyone wearing it, but it will also provide extra data, thanks to the presence of a medical-grade biometric scanner that monitors heart and stress levels.

How is it done?

The first step is to start collecting and storing data from anyone who wants to pay for and participate in "Live Forever" mode. Somnium Space plans to start working on it this year, albeit it will only collect data on user movements and noises when on their plots of land, known as parcels in metaverse lingo. Somnium Space plans to deliver the first set of AI replicas of its users by next year, in which people are duplicated as avatars with motions and rudimentary communication abilities.

Desmond Frencken, the company's CEO, stated the essence of this concept to us: "Being able to deliver a speech at your death has been on my bucket list." We've now made it feasible. It's a more intimate message than a movie. You can stand there because the projection is so clear and vivid as if it were you." Other types of "digital resurrections" exist, such as a much-discussed case of a South Korean corporation employing artificial intelligence to allow a mother to meet her deceased daughter in virtual reality one more time. That way, she could say a decent goodbye, something she hadn't been able to do in real life.