In the future, we aren’t going to fight the robots, we’re going to become the robots. In fact, it may be even sooner — like, now. We’ll have two AI-powered panelists taking questions from the audience.

Oh, we’ll have some great biological panelists, too. They’ll discuss artificial intelligence, digital avatars, and the future of identity. Along the way we’ll learn:

* Just how close we are to seeing self-aware, digital life forms
* How new AI technology might enhance our biological lives
* How digital avatars might keep living for you after you die

The singularity won’t be televised, folks. We’ll make sure you don’t miss it.

With significant adoption of social networks by baby boomers and with gene x reaching middle age, we now have a broad population that is open to using the Internet as a way to grieve and remember  loved ones after death. Entrepreneurs have seen this opportunity and as a result we have seen explosive growth in the online memorials industry.

In addition to the 17 online memorial sites that we currently have on our list of digital legacy services, we are now adding ForeverMissed, Solium, People 2 Remember, Stayalive,  Memory-Of.com, and  Planned Departure.

We’ve seen Facebook being used as a social grieving space for several years already. Profiles of the deceased are routinely transformed into online memorials. But the memorialization process locks the profile and disables the ability to add new “friends.” As a result we’ve seen the creation of memorial “pages” on Facebook. A simple search for “R.I.P” on Facebook shows that people are creating these pages so anyone can participate.

Dedicated online memorial websites go a step further than Facebook. They create a place whose declared purpose is to connect with others and grieve socially. This eliminates the confusion that people experience when encountering death in a vibrantly social place like Facebook.

It is uncertain how sustainable all this growth is. What we are probably seeing is an initial growth explosion of a new industry. My guess is that we’ll see consolidation and drop off of companies in the coming years. But for the time being, the online memorial rush is in full swing.

Photo by Herry Lawford

What if you had someone there for you, every single day, without fail – if they were always ready with a kind word or a response to your latest musing. Never mad. Always caring ans concerned. Always ready to take time to be with you.

Would it matter if he or she were a robot? Or no longer alive?

Enter digital avatars. Two companies, Virtual Eternity and Lifenaut have released “digital avatar” products. What is a digital avatar? Well, here’s mine.

That’s my avatar from LifeNaut. It works by an predictive AI program that connects to a store of information about you. Go ahead, ask “me” a question. My name. About my family.

Potential

What’s most interesting is not how this avatar looks and works today. It’s the potential that these avatars have for the future and what they are the beginning of. As you can see if you play with it, this avatar is pretty basic. It’s predictive ability is restricted to the very limited amount of information that I put in its database of my attitudes, feelings, and perspectives – my digital “mind file.”

This is because right now programming these avatars takes a lot of time and energy. But what if it took no energy? What if they tapped into your social media accounts and passively listened to every status update, comment, or post? Imagine how rich a profile it would have in just a few years.

In 2032

Fast forward a couple decades. The AI is 100 times better (Moore’s Law and all that). You can have a natural conversation. Your mind file has 20 years worth of data on your thoughts and beliefs. What was a manipulated still photo is a fully, three-dimensional representation of you. It’s crossed the uncanny valley and is completely convincing.

Now, imagine that you die, and this projection of you “lives” on.

To me, the most compelling questions this technology raises are:

• How would this technology change the way the living experience the death of a loved one?
• How can this technology be used to extended consciousness?
• Is it OK that this is the first step down to a road toward synthetic life forms?
• Is the idea of consciousness transfer to a digital medium and ultimately a new body something we want?

Is this the future of death?

The fledgling digital death industry is beginning to have some published success. We are seeing companies publish more facts about venture capital and how many users they have.

1000Memories

Mashable reports that “1000Memories, a web service that helps digitally honor the memory of a loved one, has announced that it has closed a $2.5 million series A round of funding from Greylock Partners.” This after their successful graduation from Y Combinator and a $500k angel round from a list of “all-star” investors.

Read the Mashable article about 1000Memories.

DataInherit

DataInherit is reporting that they have “more than 30,000 customers in over 100 countries.” They also report that they have two new investors funding their operations and development.

Read more about DataInherit’s success.

MemoryOf

MemoryOf is reporting that they now have over 91,000 memorials. While many will be free accounts, these kinds of numbers are promising sign for the new industry and shows that the memorial market is growing stronger.

Legacy.com

Legacy.com partners  with newspapers to post obituaries and provides digital memorial services. From their website we learn:

“Legacy.com hosts obituaries and memorials for more than 60 percent of the people who die in the United States. The site attracts more than 10 million visitors monthly and hosts obituaries for more than three-quarters of the 100 largest newspapers, by circulation.”

Read the article at legacy.com.

Do you have business news to share? Contact us and let us know for our new Industry category.

We were interviewed on KDSK St. Louis. Kasey Joyce interviewed John and Evan about digital legacy. Matthew Koons, a man whose wife died at age 31, talks about having to decide what to do with his wife’s online accounts. Tim Yaeglin, an estate attorney also answers some legal planning issues.

Are you interested in the subject of digital legacy? Come down to the South By Southwest Interactive Festival. We’re hosting a panel followed by a meet up.

The panel

“You’re Dead, Your Data Isn’t: What Happens Now?”
March 14th at 9:30 AM
Come hear our panel of speakers talk about the subject.

Bookstore Apperaance

Your Digital Afterlife
March 14th at 10:50 AM
We’ll be at the South By Bookstore to greet interested registrants and sign copies of our book, Your Digital Afterlife.

The Meetup

The Digital Death Meetup
March 14th at 12:30-1:30PM
Meet people policy people, archivists, academics, lawyers and entrepreneurs. Join us and continue the conversation. Come share ideas and connect with people in this casual meet up.

This is a simple question and we wish there was a simple answer. Unfortunately there isn’t a standard way that Internet users can expect service providers to handle their accounts after death. Every provider has a “terms of service” (the legalese) that governs your account. Unfortunately for consumers, no two are alike.

We cover this pretty extensively in the second half of our book, Your Digital Afterlife, but here’s a quick run down of some popular providers and what happens at each:

• Facebook
• Gmail
• Twitter
• Yahoo
• YouTube

Facebook

Facebook covers the rights of deceased users in its privacy policy.

Your heirs can request that your account be deleted or “memorialized.” Memorialized profiles restrict profile access to confirmed friends, and allow friends and family to write on the user’s Wall in remembrance. You shouldn’t count on it staying active since anyone can request that it be memorialized by simply notifying Facebook and showing a death certificate or a news article that indicates your death.

Facebook has also introduced a new feature that allows you to “Download Your Information” This tool lets you download a copy of your photos, videos, wall posts, messages, friends list and other content. The file that you download can be opened in your browser so you can navigate through your content.

Gmail

Gmail provides instructions for gaining access to deceased user’s account in its help documents. They outline the steps to gaining access, which include a death certificate, and email you have received from the account in question and proof that you have legal authority over the estate.

Twitter

Twitter addresses this issue in its help documents:

If we are notified that a Twitter user has passed away, we can remove their account or assist family members in saving a backup of their public Tweets.
Please contact us with the following information:

1. Your full name, contact information (including email address), and your relationship to the deceased user.
2. The username of the Twitter account, or a link to the profile page of the Twitter account.
3. A link to a public obituary or news article.

Twitter is unique in that they offer survivors an archive of the user’s public Tweets. That’s actually very helpful as it’s often difficult to archive a Twitter account yourself.

Yahoo

Yahoo (which owns services like Flickr and Delicious) includes the following paragraph in its terms:

No Right of Survivorship and Non-Transferability. You agree that your Yahoo! account is non-transferable and any rights to your Yahoo! ID or contents within your account terminate upon your death. Upon receipt of a copy of a death certificate, your account may be terminated and all contents therein permanently deleted.

Yahoo takes a harsh stance on death, but the good news is that they will not take this action without the receipt of a death certificate. It’s possible for you to ask your digital executor to archive your Yahoo account contents before presenting Yahoo with a death certificate.

YouTube

YouTube also lists their policy for deceased users in its help documents.

If an individual has passed away and you need access to the content of his or her YouTube account, please fax or mail us the following information:

1. Your full name and contact information, including a verifiable email address.
2. The YouTube account name of the individual who passed away.
3. A copy of the death certificate of the deceased.
4. A copy of the document that gives you Power of Attorney over the YouTube account.
5. If you are the parent of the individual, please send us a copy of the Birth Certificate if the YouTube account owner was under the age of 18. In this case, Power of Attorney is not required.

John Romano and Evan Carroll will be leading a panel at the 2011 SXSW Interactive festival. “You’re dead. Your data isn’t. What happens now?” will explore digital death and legacy from several perspectives.

Here’s the description of the event:
The Web has changed your life, your death and what you leave behind. Your heirlooms like photos, videos and letters are now stored in digital form and—in many cases—on servers that you don’t own like those of Flickr, YouTube and Gmail. What should happen to your “legacy” data? With over 285,000 Facebook users set to die this year, you really should think about it. The Internet generation is coming of age and this issue is only growing. We have to respond with new legal frameworks and standards to support this change. The good news is that entrepreneurs, attorneys, archivists and scholars are already working on solutions. Join us to learn what happens to your digital life after you die and what’s being done to give you a say in it.

Learn more at the SXSW panelpicker website.

Our panelists

We would like to introduce our panelists:

John Romano

John is one of the earliest scholars of the digital afterlife. He started his research in 2008 and has written and presented extensively on the topic. He co-founded the first website devoted to this topic, thedigitalbeyond.com, and is in the process of writing the first book on this topic, to be released later this year. As an Internet professional John brings a high level of technical and social understanding to this topic.

Evan Carroll

Evan Carroll is co-author of “Your Digital Afterlife” (2010 New Riders Press) and creator of TheDigitalBeyond.com. An experience designer and researcher by trade, he is also completing graduate studies at UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science. He is a recognized leader in the digital afterlife arena as a frequent speaker and media source. He lends his cultural and archival expertise to the panel.

Dazza Greenwood

Dazza Greenwood has focused his career on creating legislation and policy to support use of the Internet and enable online identity. He was previously a lecturer and researcher of law and technology at MIT and the MIT Media Lab where he developed identity, privacy, transactional and architectural solutions. Dazza runs the consultancy CIVICS.com, has led several open standards efforts and currently is helping to start up the eCitizen Foundation. Dazza brings his expertise in law, policy and online identity to the panel.

Adele McAlear

Adele McAlear is exploring the relationship between death, social media and technology through research, speaking and her blog at DeathAndDigitalLegacy.com. Her expertise has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other international media. An early adopter of social media and a technology enthusiast, Adele was named one of the Top 10 Most Influential Women in Social Media in Canada and is an experienced integrated marketing consultant based in Montréal.

Jeremy Toeman

Jeremy Toeman is the founder and CEO of Legacy Locker, the first online service dedicated to helping people create wills for their online assets and identity.  He is a serial entrepreneur, with successful consumer lifestyle technology ventures at Sling Media and Mediabolic, and has also consulted with numerous top-tier consumer businesses.  He is also a well-known thought leader in the technology industry, and a frequent speaker at conferences and other events. Jeremy brings a business and entrepreneurial perspective to the panel.

A new service has launched called Virtual Eternity that promises to create an “intelligent” avatar that can live on after you die. The avatar would look like you, sound like you, and respond to questions just like you do. And it could live on indefinitely after you are gone.

The site, virtualeternity.com, allows you to upload a photo of yourself. Immediately you begin to see your avatar take life. Their application makes your photo come alive. Your photo blinks and your mouth opens and closes as it talks. The head even bobs around naturally giving it an immediately life-life appearance.

So how does it work?

You begin by training it. You answer personality tests. You teach it to answer in the same way that you do. You also upload photos that your future avatar can talk about. You can even make a voice profile so that it talks in your voice.

Once it’s trained, it can answer questions that are typed into a text field. Now, it isn’t perfect. In fact, the makers say that it’s still in beta. It fails on many questions, but it answers some correctly. And you can assume that the more data that you give it the more that it’ll know about you. You can also assume that with time, effort and increased computing power, these avatars could get pretty high fidelity.

This is an amazing platform for knowing people from the past, whether they are famous people or your grandparent. And while its current functionality needs some work, the potential is here to offer people something that is really unprecedented and something that we have never seen before, except in science fiction.

Following our top-rated core conversation in 2010, Become Immortal: Understanding the Digital Afterlife, we’re ramping up for SXSW 2011. But to get there, we need your help. The first round of the panel selection process is underway and that means it’s time to vote for your favorite ideas in the Panel Picker.

You should give us a thumbs up. We’d really appreciate it. All you have to do is create an account and click the thumbs up icon on our page.

Here’s some more information about our idea and the awesome set of panelists we have lined up.

Description

The Web has changed your life, your death and what you leave behind. Your heirlooms like photos, videos and letters are now stored in digital form and—in many cases—on servers that you don’t own like those of Flickr, YouTube and Gmail. What should happen to your “legacy” data? With over 285,000 Facebook users set to die this year, you really should think about it.

The Internet generation is coming of age and this issue is only growing. We have to respond with new legal frameworks and standards to support this change. The good news is that entrepreneurs, attorneys, archivists and scholars are already working on solutions. Join us to learn what happens to your digital life after you die and what’s being done to give you a say in it.

Key Questions

1. How significant is a lifetime of data and how should it be preserved/archived/deleted after its creator is gone? Can we keep it forever?
2. How is the law changing to support the legal transferability of digital assets? What can I do to secure them today?
3. How is the business of death changing to support digital assets? What companies and solutions are emerging to deal with this?
4. Today, online identity is designed for short term use, what types of information architectures and policy structures would support identity throughout and after our lives?
5. If the social Web is redefining the way we interact with each other, what role will it play in the way we grieve together?