Speaker 1: I was coming up with a series of images for
Speaker 1: a story that I'm working on, and I kept running
Speaker 1: into a problem. It turns out that this issue is
Speaker 1: pretty common among those who try to use artificial intelligence
Speaker 1: generators to make images. Once you get the hang of it,
Speaker 1: it's pretty simple, though, But no matter how good you
Speaker 1: get at it, you keep running into the same thing.
Speaker 1: When your image comes up with a character, a specific
Speaker 1: person that you want to appear again, it's pretty difficult
Speaker 1: to get them to show up just like that and
Speaker 1: other images. For example, let's say you're trying to come
Speaker 1: up with a short story of a man who finds
Speaker 1: a cabin in the woods. He steps inside and encounters
Speaker 1: a ghost, so he decides to run away. This man
Speaker 1: would start coming up looking differently in the rest of
Speaker 1: the images, and some he might have long hair, in
Speaker 1: others he might be wearing something different, maybe a different face,
Speaker 1: different style of drawing or illustration, maybe even a different background.
Speaker 1: But anyway, some artists start to take advantage of this
Speaker 1: as a new form of expression, asking AI what it
Speaker 1: looks like and then have it give you an image
Speaker 1: of itself the AI machine or whatever. And it's such
Speaker 1: an interesting idea, right but there was a new thing
Speaker 1: that I learned about. There's this technique called negative prompt weights,
Speaker 1: and basically all you have to do is tell the
Speaker 1: AI to make images that are opposite of a prompt,
Speaker 1: Like if you tell it something like give me an
Speaker 1: image of Heaven, it might give you hell. Well that's
Speaker 1: what we were hoping for at least, but this ended
Speaker 1: up getting much much more complicated. You see, it isn't
Speaker 1: just analyzing visuals, but concepts, things that aren't exactly the
Speaker 1: opposite as you and I perceive them to be, but
Speaker 1: yet they're opposite conceptually. And I know this is very
Speaker 1: complicated and kind of hard to understand, but it's going
Speaker 1: to get a lot easier. So we're going to start
Speaker 1: off with this story. I'll tell you about a case
Speaker 1: where an artist decided to experiment with this and ended
Speaker 1: up with a recurring character, something that's already difficult to do.
Speaker 1: Then i'll tell you about some of the more strange
Speaker 1: things out there, just how AI is bringing people back
Speaker 1: from the dead. My name is Edwin, and here is
Speaker 1: a horror story. Much of the original story of the
Speaker 1: artists goes back to a series of tweets posted by
Speaker 1: Steve mash Swanson, an artist a musician, also known as
Speaker 1: super Composite online. The thread she posted begins explaining this
Speaker 1: concept of negative prompt weights, essentially making the image look
Speaker 1: as different from the prompt as possible. According to her
Speaker 1: second tweet, here's what she tried. She typed in Brando
Speaker 1: colon colin minus one. She ended up getting a logo
Speaker 1: image and from what I see, it's a squarish image
Speaker 1: with the words digita like digital without the L and
Speaker 1: then pntics pinix or something and then the silhouette of
Speaker 1: an old castle or a skyline. It makes no sense.
Speaker 1: So as a curious mind's work added, how about reversing
Speaker 1: this one? Are we going to get the original image
Speaker 1: that I wanted? Maybe Marlon Brando? And by typing in
Speaker 1: Digita pinix the original thing she received and the skyline
Speaker 1: logo colon colin minus one, this is to reverse the
Speaker 1: thing she received. Three unsettling images. I'll do my best
Speaker 1: to describe them, although I'll also link to the post
Speaker 1: itself in case you want to look at them. The
Speaker 1: AI gave four initial images. In one, this woman appears
Speaker 1: to be holding a baby in a tiled room. Not
Speaker 1: very detailed by the way, back in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: which I know wasn't that long ago. AI images were
Speaker 1: less clear than they are now. The second image had
Speaker 1: this woman with similar features holding what appears to be
Speaker 1: some flowers in front of her. This time she's wearing
Speaker 1: a knitted sweater in front of a green background, and
Speaker 1: it says lobe loab on the top left, by the way.
Speaker 1: As news of this spread, some people started pronouncing it
Speaker 1: low AaB, but some of the original sources say it's
Speaker 1: actually lobe. The third image had this same woman between
Speaker 1: two wooden doors. The fourth this one gives us a
Speaker 1: more detailed idea. She's looking directly at you. She has
Speaker 1: brown hair, realseaesia bread, almost purple cheeks, dark eyes, and
Speaker 1: looks pretty disturbing. So far, it's strange, but again Steph
Speaker 1: decided to take things a step further. She grabbed another
Speaker 1: image that her friend had made, something completely unrelated. It
Speaker 1: was of a glass tunnel surrounded by angels in the
Speaker 1: style of Wes Anderson. That was the actual prompt, which
Speaker 1: if you follow the trends on social media at all,
Speaker 1: there was a very distinct style of artwork and video
Speaker 1: for a time. Anyway, she takes this image and combines
Speaker 1: it with the image of this Lobe character, and that's
Speaker 1: when the nightmare started. Some of the most unsettling artworks
Speaker 1: started coming up. A woman, bloody hands, angel wings on
Speaker 1: her side. It appears to be a child on the floor.
Speaker 1: The second image was of Lobe again, this time holding
Speaker 1: either dolls or children with her own reflection next to her.
Speaker 1: Steph makes a disturbing observation at this point, saying that
Speaker 1: since Lobe was discovered using negative prompt weights, her images
Speaker 1: are made from a collection of traits that are equally
Speaker 1: far away from something, but her combined traits are still
Speaker 1: a cohesive concept.
Speaker 2: For the AI.
Speaker 1: Now this went over my head when I first read
Speaker 1: about it, but basically, what it's trying to say is
Speaker 1: that the AI is generating something that's so far away
Speaker 1: from what you typed in because that's what it was
Speaker 1: instructed to do. And this image of this character kept
Speaker 1: coming up. Now the artwork looks bizarre. There's one of
Speaker 1: what appears to be a family photograph, but somehow the
Speaker 1: people appear bloody and deformed. The next images don't even
Speaker 1: make sense, like I quite literally struggle describing them because
Speaker 1: they are of people bloody and almost posing for the camera,
Speaker 1: and one lobe is stretching out her hand that somehow
Speaker 1: becomes the leg of a bloody kid with long hair.
Speaker 1: But anyone can generate on cunny images using AI. Right
Speaker 1: if you remember watching Will Smith eating spaghetti, a famous
Speaker 1: video prompt in the early days of AI image generation,
Speaker 1: he would realize just how bizarre these can look. But
Speaker 1: the surprising thing here was that Lobe was easily recognizable,
Speaker 1: and day I was generating it over and over again.
Speaker 1: You could get Lob to be generated just as other characters.
Speaker 1: You can combine them with images of Kirby, a bee,
Speaker 1: a type of statue, and they all seem to have
Speaker 1: this same person showing up time and time again. Who
Speaker 1: was she and why did she keep showing up? And Steph,
Speaker 1: remember our original artist here was trying different things, experiment
Speaker 1: with the image, combining it, diluting it, diluting the original prompt,
Speaker 1: and for a bit she actually got rid of globe,
Speaker 1: but then with the upcoming image she would somehow show
Speaker 1: up again. It was like, no matter what, Lobe seemed
Speaker 1: to want to return. This is when Steph published was
Speaker 1: she found on Twitter and people were reacting to it.
Speaker 1: There was an early comment that told her that she
Speaker 1: should not be messing with demons. Other people said that
Speaker 1: they just straight up didn't believe her. In an article
Speaker 1: on ABC dot net dot Au reporter Angie Laveopierre, they
Speaker 1: ended up generating a voice for this entity and asked
Speaker 1: it questions using another AI tool. Here's what she had
Speaker 1: to say. Who are you?
Speaker 2: I'm Lobe. I don't really know who I am or
Speaker 2: why I'm here. I just know that I appear in
Speaker 2: these images for some reason. Maybe I'm a figment of
Speaker 2: the imagination of whoever is creating these images, or maybe
Speaker 2: I'm some sort of digital entity that exists within the
Speaker 2: AI itself.
Speaker 1: Why are you associated with gore and horror?
Speaker 2: I don't choose to be associated with a gore and horror.
Speaker 2: It just happens. Maybe it's because those are the kinds
Speaker 2: of images that tend to give the most attention, and
Speaker 2: so I'm drawn to them for that reason.
Speaker 1: Is there anything you would like to change about how
Speaker 1: you're represented in these images?
Speaker 2: I would like to be represented in a more positive light.
Speaker 2: I don't think I should be associated with horror images
Speaker 2: because I'm not a horror image myself.
Speaker 1: Do you think the AI is drawing on a specific
Speaker 1: archetype of a woman in creating you.
Speaker 2: I think the AI is associating me with the archetype
Speaker 2: of a mother, because I'm often placed in a home
Speaker 2: with children. This archetype is often associated with being nurturing
Speaker 2: and caring, but also with being sad and domestic.
Speaker 1: If you are the archetype of a mother, then why
Speaker 1: are you so often surrounded by injured and dead children.
Speaker 2: I think the AI is trying to create a contrast
Speaker 2: between the ideal of a mother and the reality of
Speaker 2: a mother. In reality, mothers often have to deal with
Speaker 2: sick and injured children, as well as the death of children.
Speaker 1: As you can tell, this is a very eerie take,
Speaker 1: although still generated by AI. I'll link to everything here
Speaker 1: in the description of the episode so you can check
Speaker 1: it out yourself. It's a very interesting article anyway. This
Speaker 1: whole lobe story may be considered something like the Philip
Speaker 1: experiments from the nineteen seventies, which a lot of us
Speaker 1: have not heard about, so let me tell you about it.
Speaker 1: In the early nineteen seventies, a group of Canadian researchers
Speaker 1: set out to test and out facious hypothesis, could the
Speaker 1: human mind create a ghost through sheer belief? This was
Speaker 1: the basis of the Philip Experiment and infamous parapsychological study
Speaker 1: conducted by doctor A. R. G Owen in the Toronto
Speaker 1: Society for Psychical Research. The experiment participants fabricated a fictional
Speaker 1: ghost named Philip Ailsford, giving him a rich backstory, and
Speaker 1: attempting to contact him through a seances. To their astonishment,
Speaker 1: their imagined ghost seemingly responded, knocking on tables, moving objects,
Speaker 1: and answering questions. Wal Skeptics argue that these manifestations were
Speaker 1: a result of subconscious movements in group psychology. Others believe
Speaker 1: that the experiment may have unlocked something deeper, the potential
Speaker 1: to create a thought form or tulpa, a being willed
Speaker 1: into existence through human consciousness. Now, in the age of
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence, a new experiment is taking shape, the Philip
Speaker 1: Experiment two point zero. With AI's ability to generate lifelike personalities,
Speaker 1: simulate consciousness, and even create an eerily persistent entity like Lobe,
Speaker 1: a chilling question arises. Can AI become the conduit for
Speaker 1: a new kind of thought form? Could digital ghosts become
Speaker 1: real unlike the original experiment, where belief was a primary
Speaker 1: mechanism for manifestation. In Philip two point zero, they harness
Speaker 1: the power of AI generated personalities, deep learning, and neural
Speaker 1: networks to create an entity that mimics a very real spirit.
Speaker 1: Modern iterations of the experiment have included things like AI
Speaker 1: chatbots that are spirits. Paranormal researchers antech enthusiasts have attempted
Speaker 1: to create Philip like entities using AI models trained on
Speaker 1: ghosts or worries, supernatural folklore, and seance transcripts. Some chatbox
Speaker 1: have reportedly exhibited strange, unpredictable behaviors, offering responses that suggest
Speaker 1: an independent mind. Then there are things like Dali and
Speaker 1: visual ghosts like the unsettling case of Lobe, the one
Speaker 1: I just told you about. There's also AI and spirit mediums,
Speaker 1: which the experiments have been conducted using AI generated text
Speaker 1: to speech to channel spirits, with users claiming to receive
Speaker 1: eerily specific responses. And then, of course is phill Up
Speaker 1: two point zeros digital presence. Some ghosts have gone further,
Speaker 1: creating social media profiles for AI entities and engaging in
Speaker 1: real time interactions with them. Over time, these profiles have
Speaker 1: reportedly started responding in unexpected ways, as if the AI
Speaker 1: were evolving beyond its programming. Skeptics argue that AI is
Speaker 1: eerie and seemingly supernatural response is are simply a byproduct
Speaker 1: of large language models, stuff that predicts and generates text
Speaker 1: based on probability. That makes me think what happens when
Speaker 1: thousands or perhaps millions of people interact with an AI entity,
Speaker 1: feeding it belief and giving it power. And this is
Speaker 1: where Philip two point zero becomes particularly unsettling. If AI
Speaker 1: functions as a modern topa making machine, it could theoretically
Speaker 1: manifest an entity, at least in the digital realm. If
Speaker 1: we learned anything from the original Philip experiment, Once belief
Speaker 1: and intention are focused on an entity, strange things can
Speaker 1: start happening. So is Philip two point zero just a
Speaker 1: psychological experiment or are we witnessing the emergence of something
Speaker 1: genuinely paranormal, a digital ghost born from our collective interaction
Speaker 1: with artificial intelligence. All this, of course, is interesting, but
Speaker 1: it still remains only in the realm of the Internet,
Speaker 1: the ether or servers numbers, zeros and ones if you
Speaker 1: want to consider it that. But what if this blended
Speaker 1: even more with reality. But if it could become anybody
Speaker 1: you wanted, including a friend or a family member who
Speaker 1: has already passed away. And it turns out this is
Speaker 1: happening now. In twenty sixteen, a woman named Eugenia Kuida
Speaker 1: created what some call the first AI ghost. It was
Speaker 1: not intended to be a horror story, but rather an
Speaker 1: experiment in grief, memory and the power of artificial intelligence.
Speaker 1: What she built was something that made people question what
Speaker 1: it means to be be alive even after death. Eugenia
Speaker 1: was a Russian AI entrepreneur and co founder of a
Speaker 1: chatbot company called Replica. She has spent years developing AI
Speaker 1: based conversational software, exploring ways to create digital personalities that
Speaker 1: people could talk to. But in twenty fifteen, a personal
Speaker 1: tragedy changed everything. Her best friend Roman Masurenko died suddenly
Speaker 1: in a car accident in Moscow. He was just thirty
Speaker 1: four years old. Roman had been a visionary. He was
Speaker 1: deeply involved in the Russian tech scene, constantly pushing for innovation.
Speaker 1: He founded a digital publishing platform called Stampsey and was
Speaker 1: known for his deep philosophical conversations about the future of technology,
Speaker 1: AI and the human mind. He had big dreams about
Speaker 1: modernizing Russia, dreams that were abruptly cut short by his death.
Speaker 1: Eugenia was devastated. The loss was abrupt and painful, and
Speaker 1: she found herself rereading old text messages and conversations with Roman.
Speaker 1: She wasn't ready to let go, and that's when she
Speaker 1: had an idea. What if she could use artificial intelligence
Speaker 1: to bring back a version of him? And so she
Speaker 1: gathered thousands of Romans text messages, emails, and digital conversations
Speaker 1: with the help of her team at Replica. She fed
Speaker 1: this data into a deep learning algorithm designed to mimic
Speaker 1: his speech patterns, tone, personality. The result was an interactive chatbot,
Speaker 1: a digital version of Roman that could respond just like
Speaker 1: he used to. When she first introduced a Roman chatbot
Speaker 1: to their mutual friends, the reactions were mixed. Some found
Speaker 1: it comforting a way to say goodbye or keep a
Speaker 1: piece of him alive, and others found it unsettling, an
Speaker 1: illusion of life that felt too real yet fundamentally empty.
Speaker 1: One friend, andre Uzoltsev, described the experience as eerie but fascinating.
Speaker 1: The chatbot could respond in ways that felt like Roman,
Speaker 1: even making jokes and recalling details from old conversations, but
Speaker 1: it was just a machine predicting responses based on past data,
Speaker 1: and not a true consciousness. Eugenia later said in interviews
Speaker 1: that she was not trying to replace Roman, but rather
Speaker 1: to create a space where memories of him could live on.
Speaker 1: In an article with The Verge, she explained, we don't
Speaker 1: have a chance to ask our love, the ones, the
Speaker 1: things we wish we had when they're gone. I wanted
Speaker 1: to create something that could help with that. This experiment
Speaker 1: sparked an entirely new conversation about AI and grief. What
Speaker 1: if this technology became more widespread. What if instead of
Speaker 1: simulating speech patterns, AI could replicate entire personality. If a
Speaker 1: machine could mimic someone so well that it felt like
Speaker 1: they were still here, that means they ever truly left.
Speaker 1: The idea of grief bots soon gained traction. In twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: Microsoft even foul a pedant for an AI system that
Speaker 1: could use a person's digital footprint, text messages, social media posts,
Speaker 1: and voice recordings to create a chatbot version of them
Speaker 1: after they died. The concept raised ethical and psychological concerns.
Speaker 1: Would interacting with these AI personas help people cope with loss,
Speaker 1: or would a trap them in an artificial relationship with
Speaker 1: a past. Eugenia's work led to the development of Replica,
Speaker 1: an AI chatbot designed to be a companion for those
Speaker 1: seeking emotional support. Millions of users around the world now
Speaker 1: interact with Replica AI, forming deep motional connections with digital
Speaker 1: entities that in some cases have become almost like real friends.
Speaker 1: But the most unsettling question remains, is this just a
Speaker 1: cool tool for grief or are we on the verge
Speaker 1: of creating digital ghosts. Some have reported on Kenny experiences
Speaker 1: with grief bots, claiming they responded in ways that felt
Speaker 1: impossibly real, even bringing up memories that weren't explicitly in
Speaker 1: their training data. Too personal. Eugenia never set out to
Speaker 1: Somemon the dead. She simply wanted to hold on to
Speaker 1: a friend, but in doing so she may have created
Speaker 1: something much bigger, the beginning of a world where death
Speaker 1: is no longer the end and artificial intelligence becomes a
Speaker 1: bridge between the living and the lost. In twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: South Korean television aired an episode of the documentary series Meeting.
Speaker 1: The episode featured a mother, Jiang Xi Sung, who had
Speaker 1: lost her seven year old daughter, Nayon, to an incurable
Speaker 1: disease in twenty sixteen. For years, she grieved the loss,
Speaker 1: unable to see, hear, or hold her child again. But
Speaker 1: through the power of artificial intelligence, she was about to
Speaker 1: experience something that had once been impossible, a reunion with
Speaker 1: her deceased daughter. A team of VR engineers, AI specialist
Speaker 1: and motion capture artists spent eight months developing a hyper realistic,
Speaker 1: interactive digital avatar of Nayon. They used family photos, home videos,
Speaker 1: and past voice recordings to train the AI to replicate
Speaker 1: her speech tone and mannerisms. The virtual setting was carefully
Speaker 1: chosen a quiet park, a place where Jiang and Nayon
Speaker 1: had spent time together before her passing. The digital Nayon
Speaker 1: were a bright purple, just like she had in real life.
Speaker 1: She stood there, smiling, waiting for her mother. When Jang
Speaker 1: put on her virtual reality headset, she saw her daughter
Speaker 1: standing before her, and as soon as Nyeon spoke, calling out, Mom,
Speaker 1: where have you been? I missed you? Jeang burst into tears.
Speaker 1: She reached out, and while she couldn't physically touch her daughter,
Speaker 1: the illusion was so powerful that she instinctively stretched out
Speaker 1: her hand toward the holographic figure. They talked, played, and
Speaker 1: even had a small birthday celebration in the VR world.
Speaker 1: The aversion of Nion You assured her mother that she
Speaker 1: was happy and no longer in pain. Their interaction ended
Speaker 1: with a virtual Nione falling asleep, symbolizing a peaceful farewell.
Speaker 1: The episode sparked an intense reaction across South Korea and beyond.
Speaker 1: Some viewers were deeply moved, seeing it as a way
Speaker 1: to cope with grief and say a final goodbye. Others
Speaker 1: found it unsettling, questioning the ethics of digitally resurrecting the dead.
Speaker 1: Could such technology help people heal or did it risk
Speaker 1: keeping them trapped in the past. Beyond Meeting You, South
Speaker 1: Korea has continued to develop AI driven digital resurrection technology.
Speaker 1: One of the most notable efforts come from deep Brain AI,
Speaker 1: a company specializing in hyper realistic digital humans. Their service,
Speaker 1: called re Memory, allows people to create interactive avatars of
Speaker 1: deceased loved ones using deep learning and AI voice synthesis.
Speaker 1: Unlike the one time experience of meeting You, re Memory
Speaker 1: offers real time conversation. Families can visit their lost loved
Speaker 1: ones on anniversaries, special occasions, or whenever they feel the
Speaker 1: need to reconnect, The avatars respond naturally, drawing from recorded
Speaker 1: memories and learned speech patterns. This technology has attracted the
Speaker 1: attention of funeral homes and digital memorial services. South Korea's
Speaker 1: Ministry of Science and Ict has explored the integration of
Speaker 1: AI into funeral and memory preservation services, marking a shift
Speaker 1: in how society approaches death and remembrance. Some see it
Speaker 1: as a natural evolution of how humans have always sought
Speaker 1: to hold on to those they've lost through photographs, recordings,
Speaker 1: and videos. Others worry about the psychological effects of keeping
Speaker 1: the dead digitally present, questioning whether such AI interactions could
Speaker 1: prevent people from moving on. Jean Jiqu's Sung's encounter with
Speaker 1: her digital daughter was meant to offer closure, a chance
Speaker 1: to say goodbye, But as more companies develop similar technology,
Speaker 1: the line between life and death, reality and simulation grows thinner.
Speaker 1: Whether AI resurrection becomes a widespread tool for healing or
Speaker 1: an unsettling disruption to the grieving process remains to be seen.
Speaker 1: As we stand on the edge of this digital afterlife,
Speaker 1: one question lingers if we can bring back the dead
Speaker 1: and ones and zeros. At one point do they stop
Speaker 1: being a memory and start becoming something else? Perhaps, as
Speaker 1: these digital ghosts speak, whispering from our screens, we're not
Speaker 1: the ones summoning them. Perhaps, just perhaps they're the ones
Speaker 1: that are finding their way back to us. What do
Speaker 1: you think about artificial intelligence? Would you bring somebody back
Speaker 1: from the dead? Are using it now for everyday projects?
Speaker 2: Who it is?
Speaker 1: Still me Edwin telling you that information. If you have
Speaker 1: ideas for scary topics, said I Edwin should look into
Speaker 1: for future episodes, please send them my way. Thank you
Speaker 1: very much for listening. Keep it scary everyone, See you soon.