As AI continues to pervade every industry, there are also wide-ranging personal implications that society only seems to be currently scratching the surface of. Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck’s documentary Eternal You, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival last year, explores the AI technology that is providing immortality, at least in a digital sense, as users resurrect virtual reality avatars of their deceased loved ones in the pursuit of emotional healing. Ahead of a VOD release on January 24 from Film Movement, we’re pleased to premiere the first trailer.
Here’s the synopsis: “What if you never had to say goodbye to a loved one? What if death and grief were concerns of the past? Filmmakers Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck pose these questions and more while examining one of the latest major breakthroughs in AI technology – open language models that enable realistic conversations with virtual reality avatars built using characteristics of the deceased. In essence, bringing the dead to digital life. Through interviews with end-users, tech experts, journalists, programmers and psychologists, a broad and analytical account unfolds to reveal the far-reaching and often disturbing implications of this new technology. “A sprawling portrait of the emerging business that is digital afterlife technology,” (Rolling Stone), ETERNAL YOU both glimpses what the future of death in capitalism holds and examines what the human costs might be.
“The film does not seek to answer the question of whether people should really make themselves or others digitally immortal. But the hubris of wanting to make even the greatest miracle of human life––human consciousness––technically reproducible could lead to a new form of humility before the human condition. The dream of eternal life could ultimately lead to a reflection on what makes transient life worth living.”
See our exclusive trailer premiere below.
