RESEARCH AND METHODOLOGY BEHIND CYBERP OMP: IM MORTALISED DIGITAL IDENTITIES
starting up . . .
WHO ARE YOU?
INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION
Digital communication and interaction via social networking platforms have become an integral part of modern life. On these platforms, individuals project facets of their identities to a network of audiences, establishing an online digital identity. This in turn creates a social presence in a network.
Emerging technologies have looked for ways to extend social presence, even after a physical being has ceased to exist. These have manifested in artificially intelligent chatbots, as well as more complex, machine-learning robotics, all of which rely on data-gathering from textual and visual content.
When an individual ceases exist physically, their digital identities, including user data, networks and above all presence, continue to persist online. This, in some cases, might create a tension on the finality of physical death. In addition, posthumous user data left on these platforms are representative of an individual, and are seen as digital inheritance, having equal value to that of physical artefacts.
Utilising a speculative design methodology and framework and inspired by real-life and fictional events, CYBERPOMP is a company set in the future of 2050 that extends and cultivates digital identities beyond the boundaries of physical existence. This CYBERPOMP Manual is a compendium of research that informs the establishment, technologies and ethos behind CYBERPOMP: Immortalised Digital Identities.
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WHO ARE YOU? A FEW NOTES ON IDENTITY
DIGITAL IDENTITIES AND PERMANENCE WHAT HAPPENS TO DATA IN DEATH?
THE CLOUD NEVER DIES: VITA POST MORTEM
EXPLORING IMPLICATIONS WITH SPECULATIVE AND CRITICAL DESIGN
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Roy F. Baumeister describes identity as the definition of the self that is shared by the individual, other people, and society at large. Having a sense of identity refers to the answer to the question:
who are you?
A FEW NOTES
ON IDENTITY An identity may also contain different components; for example, an individual can be somebody’s daughter, somebody’s sister, and somebody’s student at the same time. Identity can be “multiple, fluid, socially co-constitutive with ever shifting boundaries”, and individuals can selectively organize their experiences to form a coherent sense of themselves (Papacharissi, 233). In doing so, they present a certain identity to the person, or people that they interact with. This is given off in a variety of ways and cues, such as movement and tone of voice, and in turn, presents a physical presence.
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In the context of identity online, social practices lack physical presence, but rely on visual or textual representations to present identities through computermediated channels. The most pervasive of these is social media, which individuals (especially young millennials*) utilise to share different aspects of their lives, as well as foster connections and document memories and experiences with friends, family and acquaintances.
This autobiographical approach to the digital identity is recognized as an important criterion of personal identity (Iaconesi and Persico), and can be seen as an “extension� of the offline identity, or even hybridizing (Enli and Thumim 91-92, Chua and Chang 191).
* young millennials aged 15 - 24 saw the biggest increase in time spent on social networking, with Facebook and Instagram being the most popular applications.
will digital identities influence
how we will be remembered?
DIGITAL IDENTITIES AND PERMANENCE
Digital possessions are non-material, and are often de-prioritized as compared to their physical counterparts. However, the digital spaces afforded by social media channels have played an important role in facilitating the creation of these valuable artifacts, such as textual (status updates and comments) or visual media (photos and videos). When we die, our physical selves cease to exist. But what does this mean for our digital identity? With its permanence online, the digital embodiment of ourselves is rendered ageless.
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Social networking platforms like Facebook have alerted surviving members of a deceased individual about birthdays and other status updates after their date of passing. This, in some cases, might create a tension on the finality of physical death – a deceased’s social presence may still be felt on digital channels. In addition, posthumous user data left on these platforms are representative of an individual, and are seen as digital inheritance, having equal value to that of physical artefacts.
REST IN PEACE IN THE CLOUD
Estimates claim that more than 8000 Facebook users die per day, and while death may be a thought far from the minds of millennials, content and data generated over their lifetimes are highly significant both in terms of value and quantity. Even in death, the individual “continues to persist and participate within the platforms and protocols of social media”, maintaining a social presence.
“For many people, interaction through social networking technologies like Facebook has become a large part of how they maintain social presence in the lives of others. Similarly, the practices of posting to, and addressing the dead through social media networks, maintains the social presence of the death within the social networks of the living.”
Bjorn Nansen, “The restless dead in the digital cemetery”
A YouGov survey in 2013 found that 20% of adults in the UK have considered what will happen to their online selves when they die. In Singapore, 85% of millennials (aged 20-25) surveyed have not considered or were unsure about the future of their social media accounts in event of their death, although they have acknowledged the permanence of their user content and data on these channels. So what exactly happens to our social media when we die?
DIGITAL POSTMORTEM /// CURRENT USER DATA MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS ON MAJOR DIGITAL COMMUNICATION PLATFORMS
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(and its services including Gmail, YouTube, Blogger, Google Drive and Picasa)
Introduced in 2013, the Inactive Account Manager is a
Instagram’s policies are similar to its parent company,
feature introduced by Google to “tell Google what to do
Facebook. However, while Facebook allows users to
with your Gmail messages if your account becomes inactive
choose which of these options they prefer before they die,
for any reason”.
Instagram does not.
The feature allows the individual to choose to have their
The decision of what happens to one’s Instagram account is
data deleted after a time frame specified by the user. In
out of an individual’s hands. An account of a deceased user
addition, they have the option of selecting up to 10 trusted
can be reported to Instagram for memorialization - which
contacts to receive their data from Google’s line of services.
cannot be altered (including likes, comments, followers and
What these contacts do with the data received is not
tags). Immediate family members are also able to request
controlled by Google or its brands and services.
the account be deleted.
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LINKED IN
SNAPCHAT
The sole option for managing a deceased’s LinkedIn account and data within it is account deletion. Connections and
To date, Snapchat does not have a policy for post-mortem
data cannot be recovered unless access to the account’s
account management. Accounts can only be terminated by
username and password is on hand.
the account holder, or anyone who has login credentials.
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FACEBOOK Facebook offers the possibility to set up a memorial page, or to deactivate accounts – and asks for a scan or upload of a person’s death certificate to “speed up the process.” In 2015, Facebook began offering the possibility of choosing
Twitter works with an individual who is “authorised to
a “legacy contact” – someone who can manage an account
act on behalf of the estate, or a verified immediate family
if that person passes away. In addition, legacy contacts can
member of the deceased to have an account deactivated”.
download a copy of any user data on Facebook. However,
If the account has not requested termination, it persists on
they will not be able to delete any existing data that is
the platform.
already on the profile.
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MESSAGING SERVICES (Text messaging applications such as WhatsApp and Telegram)
Major text messaging services like WhatsApp and Telegram do not indicate post-mortem account management policies; however users can download a copy of their chat history in the form of a text document or an email.
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There is unlimited data but there is limited life. One day you will be dead and no one will remember what you did, no one but Google. Life is no longer experienced in the present but as a permanent memory made up
of code, a correction of human error, a documentation that does not deteriorate with age. It is immortal, we are not. As of now it does not have an expiration date, we do. The cloud never rains, but the cloud never dies.
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THE CLOUD NEVER DIES: VITA POST MORTEM
In the event of an individual’s death, the value of their content becomes more evident to those that they leave behind. While their physical presence has gone, digital identities on social media has allowed for a “sense of continued presence” of the deceased (Lingel). It is also posited that “maintaining relationships with the dead in some form” results in better way of healing and moving on from their grief. Current systems for managing the digital legacy manage to address the issue of posthumous user data and identities; however, what if that were taken further with emerging and future technologies? With the mass of data generated and its qualities of persistence and permanence, it is noted that current systems on social media do not “do justice to the value that these media traces hold for the living”. However, some have utilised user data to push the boundaries of what the digital identity means for both the living and the dead, to varying degrees.
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The current technologies of artificially intelligent1 technologies in the form of algorithms are already present in our day-to-day computermediated communications; from Google search suggestions, consumer-targeted advertisements online, to the order of posts seen on social media feeds. As it collects and organises bits of ourselves, these technologies could be seen as a “ghost writer” of our autobiographies (Iaconesi and Persico). Some expect this to develop and grow pertaining to the subject of having a “digital afterlife”.These range from simpler forms that parse together data provided with random output (My Next Tweet, which analyses everything you’ve ever tweeted and predicts what you might tweet next), to more complex, machine-learning technology (artificial neural networks) and robotics that aim to mimic the way a biological human being learns, talks and acts.
1 Artificial intelligence (often abbreviated to AI) is the ability of a digital computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks commonly associated with naturally intelligent beings (humans). Machine learning is a current application of AI based around the idea of granting machines access to data, resulting in the ability for them to learn for themselves. Opposite page: Generated tweets of the ten most-followed accounts on Twitter (as of February 2018) using My Next Tweet. The generated tweets are mostly randomized, with no clear message. 36
REPLIKA Take the origins of Replika for example. Currently an artificiallyintelligent chatbot that acts as a friend and learns from your personality, texting patterns and quirks, the technology that Replika was based on arose from grief and a need to memorialise. When her best friend Roman Mazurenko was killed in a car accident, Replika founder Eugenia Kuyda and her friends found themselves with problem: how to preserve the memory of him the most adequate way. Aided by artificial neural networks, Eugenia Kuyda gathered
James Vlahos conversing with the Dadbot
thousands of text messages between Mazurenko and others, including herself, and built Luka, a bot that friends and family could interact with to speak to Mazurenko again. This caught the attention of many, and formed the basis of Replika – although, the objective of Replika is different: it learns from the user alone and eventually functions as a digital representation of themselves.
Running with a similar technology, Dadbot, built by James Vlahos in 2016, was a way of memorialising Vlahos’ father and to share his life story in a “more dynamic way”. Utilising images, videos and transcripts of audio and video recordings, Dadbot is more intimate in the sense that it is only accessible to close family members, and unlike Replika, it acts as a memorialisation bot, rather than one that learns and responds spontaneously in real-time from
“People started sending us emails asking to build a bot for them...Some people wanted to build a replica of themselves and some wanted to build a bot for a person that they loved and that was gone.” Eugenia Kuyda
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given information.
DADBOT
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Eugenia Kuyda, founder of Replika, in coversation with the chatbot version of her best friend, Roman Mazurenko.
“In the future, people may take that phenomenon to stunning new heights: Artificial intelligence experts predict that humans will replace dead relatives with synthetic robot clones, complete with a digital copy of that person’s brain.
The definition of ‘alive’ may even evolve to mean, ‘as long as your essential personal information continues to be organized and accessible.” Bruce Duncan, quoted in O’Neil, Natalie. “Companies Want to Replicate Your Dead Loved Ones With Robot Clones“. Motherboard.
Robotics takes artificial intelligence a step further with socially advanced robots. While not unheard of, robots such as Bina48 were made with an aim to “transfer human consciousness to computers and robots.” Bina48 is a replica of Martine Rothblatt’s wife Bina Aspen, and was created using audio data recorded by the human Bina about her memories and beliefs, thus mimicking her preferences, looks and personality. Terasem Movement, which Rothblatt currently runs, Real-life Bina (Rothblatt) meets robot Bina. Source: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=KYshJRYCArE
believes that eventually, humans will be able to have “mind files” (data) that can be used to create an individual’s “conscious analogue”, as well as recreating their mannerisms and quirks when they shed their mortal coil. Although Bina48 is not without social glitches, she demonstrates a silver of how this could develop and advance. In December 2017, Bina48 passed a class on philosophy and love at Notre Dame de Namur University in California, making her the first robot to complete a college course1.
The development of robots is also looked into by Google, which in
BINA48
2015 was awarded a patent for the customisation of the personality of a robot or computer. In addition to holding multiple personalities for interacting with different people, the patent details that this personality could replicate the robot’s owner, suggesting a “deceased loved one or a celebrity”2 3. The possibility of turning this patent into a product has yet to be determined; yet the notion of having an animated digital personality that “lives” on indefinitely is positive and highly anticipated.
1 Hess, Abigail. “Meet the robot that passed a college class on philosophy and love“, CNBC 2 Collins, Katie. “Google patents customisable robot personalities“,WIRED 3 Murphy, Mike. “Google patented building robots with personalities“, Quartz 44
In 1945 Vannevar Bush imagined an “encyclopedia Britannica (which) could be reduced to the volume of a matchbox. A library of a million volumes (which) could be compressed into one end of a desk…”1 The age of digitization and cloud storage, many years later, have made this possible. Considering digital identities can be preserved and animated in the future, able to continue interacting with the living, what does this mean for them as citizens of a state? Identity theft continues to be a significant issue especially online, and if the digital identity persists, checks and balances may be required. Will they need any “proof” of identification like us, physically living beings? Do laws and regulations apply to them? Will they eventually “expire”? Who decides if they should or should not?
1. Bush, Vannevar. “As We May Think”, The Atlantic.
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The methodology of the project undertaken will be governed by the approach of speculative and critical design. Popularised by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby at the Royal College of Art in the 1990s, speculative and critical design presents possible socio-technological
EXPLORING IMPLICATIONS WITH
futures as a way of challenge assumptions, pose questions, encourage thought, raise awareness and offer new perspectives by putting forth a simple consideration: “what if?� As highlighted in past research, speculative and critical design has seen increasing interest in Western parts of the world, with established practitioners; however this approach to design practice is nascent in others, such as in Singapore. This project thus aims to put key approaches and characteristics of speculative and critical design into practice in a local sociotechnological context, as a means of testing the hypothesis defined in the dissertation. The methodology of a speculative and/or critical design project varies from designer to designer and from project to project, and as such the one defined here has been adapted to suit the context of the subject of study, as well as technical and financial limitations.
SPECULATIVE AND CRITICAL DESIGN 50
1. DEFINE DESIGN SPACE
Definition of a design space entails critical research and/or observations of a particular subject of interest, understanding its key concepts and contexts. (highlighted in the first three sections). The “space” of a design in this approach is an area that “lies beyond the ‘current’ and ‘now’”.
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The project understands the subject of interest from three areas: first, the foundation of digital identities and presence in social media; second, death and the digital mediation of memorialisation and presence of an individual; and lastly, emerging technologies that seek to change the way an individual is remembered in death, or even extending the presence of an individual after their physical death. By identifying significant concepts to the subject of study, the design space can then be defined. Time frame: Adam Ostrow’s 2011 TED talk on death and social media suggests that technology’s ever advancing pace might pave the way for machines to learn and eventually take on human personalities based on the data they produce in the next 20 years. Using a definiton of a time frame aids the project in speculating a more “believable” future, and not one out of fantasy.
2 GENERATE SPECULATIVE CONCEPTS
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Ideas are generated based on possible implications, shifts and opportunities of the subject on interest. The project identifies “pain points� and opportunities that it can tap on to create a premise and concept:
As digital natives, millennials interact, document and make exchanges and memories on social media, giving their digital selves (their profiles and/ or accounts) a form of presence, mediated by computing technologies. This data accumulated has permanence and remains on these networks, even after an individual ceases to exist physically.
The project thus has identified the “what if” as: “(what if) the digital identity does not cease or remain “static” with an individual’s passing, but instead continues to develop, as would a physical identity?” Possible implications of this premise were considered, such as:
• What will be this “growing” digital identity’s impact on its loved ones? How will it affect their perception and interaction with this digital identity? • What will this growing digital identity be like? If this identity persists and flourishes, will it require a form of identification (such as identification documents), much like a physical being? • Will this digital identity ever “expire” or die off?
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This project considers the second possible implication as its focus. Through the lens of a speculative future (as opposed to an alternate reality) it aims to articulate forms that subvert the notion of the finality of physical death.
3. ARTICULATION OF FORMS
The designed objects in the project are representative of these characteristics defined from past research:
FICTIONS
NARRATIVE
Speculative practice relies on a fictional scenario as a premise to
The project’s narrative centers on the author of this project as the
articulate forms. In turn, these forms seek to question the implications
persona. This persona makes decisions around the given scenario,
and concept of the implementation and use of new or emerging
such as: is this persona willing to utilise CYBERPOMP as a way to “live
technologies.
on” after she dies? What measures will she take to extend her digital identity and social presence? The narrative is also left open-ended to
The scenario featured in this project is inspired by a combination
allow for personal interpretation – the forms suggest an uptake of
of real-world and fictional events. The technologies behind Roman
CYBERPOMP’s products and services, however they do not explicitly
Mazurenko’s chatbot and Bina48 were created specifically for that
reveal if they have benefitted the persona or not.
particular individual in mind; the project thus considers audience reactions to these technologies if they were made available to
The project strives not to put any bias in the articulation of forms, and
the masses.
the persona presented is merely a representative of how the forms might affect an individual in the scenario, thus making the narrative relatable and close to the everyday experience.
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ENGAGEMENT Unlike a number of speculative design projects, the forms articulated do not intend to present a dystopian or negative view of the subject of study or the premise; instead they depend on the viewer to decide if these technologies will have a positive or negative impact on the user and the individuals around them. The forms aim to serve as a communicative tool for the audience to reconsider their own beliefs
4. TESTING OF FORMS
and values. These are demonstrated through artefacts and prototypes.
AMBIGUITY The articulated forms aim to contain ambiguity to create a sense of
Testing of articulated forms allows the designer to make changes
uncertainty and in turn, may prompt curiousity in the project’s premise
to their project in the duration of its process to improve and adapt
and subject matter at hand. This manifested through the artefacts
to audience viewpoints. Alternatively, results from this testing may
generated. It is also crucial to note that while ambiguity may compel
inform future iterations of the project, or related projects in the future.
audiences to join in the dialogue of the design, the articulated forms have to be anchored in familiarity of everyday life.
Lastly, the articulated forms are tested on audiences. This project features the testing of its main digital outcomes (which also features the physical artefacts created), which were promoted through social networking platforms and websites. Feedback and audience viewpoints were collected via verbal feedback, digital forms and other digital communication platforms.
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EY. Savvy Singapore: Decoding a Digital Nation. Singapore: EY, 2017. Web.
Curator & Collaborator: New Models For Communicating. BIS Publishers, 2013.
Hess, Abilgail. “Meet the robot that passed a college class on philosophy and love”. CNBC, https://www.cnbc. com/2017/12/21/meet-the-robot-thatpassed-a-college-class-on-philosophyand-love.html.
Murphy, Mike. “Google patented building robots with personalities”. Quartz, https://qz.com/373658/ google-patented-building-robots-withpersonalities/
Hurley, Zachary David. “The Cloud Never Rains, the Cloud Never Dies”. Behance, https://www.behance.net/ gallery/.../The-Cloud-Never-Rains-theCloud-never-Dies
Brubaker, Jed R., and Janet Vertesi. “Death and the Social Network”. HCI at the End of Life Workshop at CHI, 2010.
Iaconesi, Salvatore, and Oriana Persico. “Algorithmic Autobiography: A New Literary Genre”. Digimag, no. 75, 2017, pp. 84-94.
boyd, danah, et al. “Representations of Digital Identity”. Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 2004.
Indigo. “Art of Mind Uploading – Bina48 interview with Bruce Duncan”. Indigo, http://indigo.com.ge/en/articles/ inspiration/art-mind-uploading-bina48interview-bruce-duncan
Chua, Trudy H. H., and Leanne Chang. “Follow me and my beautiful selfies: Singapore teenage girls’ engagement in self-presentation and peer comparison on social media.” Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 55, no. 1, 2016, pp. 190197.
Jamison-Powell, Sue, et al. “P.S. I love you : understanding the impact of posthumous digital messages”. Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Association for Computing Machinery, 2016, pp. 2920-2932.
Cohen, Evan. “What Happens to Your Social Media Accounts When You Die – 2018 Update”.The Digital Beyond. http:// www.thedigitalbeyond.com/2018/02/ what-happens-to-your-social-mediaaccounts-when-you-die-our-2018-update/
Leaver, Tama. “The Social Media Contradiction: Data Mining and Digital Death”. M/C Journal, vol. 16, no. 2, 2013, pp.
Collins, Katie. “Google patents customisable robot personalities.” WIRED, http://www.wired.co.uk/article/ google-robot-personalities
Malpass, Matt. Critical Design in Context: History, Theory, and Practices. Bloomsbury, 2017.
Dunne, Anthony, and Fiona Raby. Speculative Everything. The MIT Press, 2013.
Mitrovic, Ivica, and Oleg Šuran. “Introduction to Speculative Design Practice: Eutropia, a Case study”, 15-29 May 2015, HDD Gallery, Zagreb, Croatia.
Elliot, Alexandra. “Death and Social Media Implications for the Young and Will-less”. Jurimetrics, vol. 55, no. 3, 2015, pp. 381-405.
Mitrovic, Ivica, and Oleg Šuran. “Speculative – Post-Design Practice or New Utopia?” The XXI International Exhibtion of the Triennale di Milano, 2 April-12 September 2016, Croatia.
Enli, Gunn Sara, and Nancy Thumim. “Socializing and Self-Representation online: Exploring Facebook.” Observatorio (OBS*) Journal, vol. 6, no. 1, 2012, pp. 87-105.
McCarthy, Steven. The Designer as Author, Producer, Activist, Entrepreneur,
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Nansen, Bjorn, et al. “The Restless Dead in the Digital Cemetery”. Digital Death: Mortality and Beyond in the Online Age. Praeger Publishers, 2014. Newton, Casey. “Speak, memory”.The Verge, https://www.theverge.com/a/lukaartificial-intelligence-memorial-romanmazurenko-bot. O’Neil, Natalie. “Companies Want to Replicate Your Dead Loved Ones With Robot Clones“. Motherboard, https:// motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ pgkgby/companies-want-to-replicateyour-dead-loved-ones-with-robot-clones Ostrow, Adam. “After your final status update”.TED, July 2011. https://www.ted.com/talks/adam_ ostrow_after_your_final_status_update Papacharissi, Zizi. A Networked Self: Identity, Community and Culture on Social Network Sites. 2011.
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