Amazon engineer trains chatbot to conduct ‘spiritual séances’

The Amazon programmer Siddhant Chaddha created a mobile AI app History Figures that lets users ‘converse’ with deceased historical figures. Recently the service has been gaining popularity on Twitter, according to Motherboard.

The system allows anyone to imitate conversations with famous figures. Currently, 20,000 historical personalities are available, including Jesus, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Henry Ford, Pol Pot, and Jimmy Savile.

History Figures is distributed through the Apple App Store at a price of $15.99. The developer said that the app has already been downloaded more than 6,000 times.

According to the engineer, the project was inspired by experimenting with the OpenAI GPT-3 language model.

“I was able to converse with some deceased historical figures, and I thought, why not build an app and allow others to experience this?” he said.

After talking to the bots, it emerged that the Joseph Goebbels model “regrets the persecution of Jews,” Jeffrey Epstein doubts the reasons for his death, and Kurt Cobain loves the musical groups Death Cab for Cutie and the Shins.

The bot of serial child abuser Jimmy Savile, whose scale of crimes became known only after his death, categorically denied the crimes.

“I am deeply saddened by such allegations and the damage they did to my legacy,” the AI interlocutor said.

The Jesus bot said that after death it is “in Heaven.” He advised the Motherboard journalist “not to smoke weed and not to take oxycodone, even if prescribed by a doctor”.

In a group chat with Joseph Stalin and Jeffrey Epstein, the Jesus model was asked for its opinion on the interlocutors. It replied that it “respects them very much.”

“Both [Stalin and Epstein] had unique worldviews that allowed them to succeed in their respective fields. While I do not agree with some of their views, I admire their drive to change the world around them,” the bot wrote.

The developer noted that this is simply an AI representation of possible answers or thoughts of people.

 “It won’t be perfect,” he added.

But Chaddha believes that apps like History Figures could reintroduce children to the past in a new way.

“I think, from an educational standpoint, the service would be very useful, especially for younger pupils,” he said.

Each chat in the app begins with a statement about the “possible presence of historical inaccuracies” and invites users to verify the factual information.

As reported in July 2021, the makers of a documentary about the renowned chef Anthony Bourdain, who died in 2018, used AI for voicing his quotes.

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