Deceased Friend in an AI Chatbot

中文 | CHI：
《从此上帝也多了一位天使》

2015年的11月，因一次惨烈的车祸，Kuyda的好友Roman Mazurenko被夺去了生命。三个月后，这位年轻的程序员创造了以她朋友的名字及性格一模一样的AI（人工智能）聊天机器人，通过将多年来与她好友聊天时所发送的照片、文章、千万条短信等数字记忆写入这一聊天机器人内，至此对他的思念寻觅到了新的归宿。
Kuyda lost her best friend, fellow tech entrepreneur Roman Mazurenko, in November 2015, but just three months after his tragic car accident, she sent the first text message to his AI personality, Roman. With no grave to visit, because he had been cremated, the young programmer, decided to use every digital memory of him, including photos, news articles and thousands of SMS text messages he had sent to her over the years, and feed them into a neural network to create an AI chatbot that many of those who knew Roman say sounds just like him.

“他的去世让我很是伤心，起初不知如何去面对，每回总想去挖掘与他在一起的点点滴滴，总会想方设法不去回忆。半年后，我知道那是无济于事的。之后的几个月，我们在Luka科技公司的团队借助神经网络上的小型数据集开发出了一款互动对话模式，为此我试着将所有一切有关他的照片和文章输入其中，创造了Roman AI”，Kuyda在脸谱上陈述道：“若发送给他有关他生活的短信，他的回复就如他本人一样非常自然。”
“It was the first death for me. I didn’t know how to react, so as soon as I could I shoved everything as deep inside as possible and tried not to feel anything. Half a year later I can say that it doesn’t go away. In the last couple of months, our team at Luka managed to build a dialogue model using smaller datasets on top of a neural net. I put together all texts we sent each other, photos, articles about him and we built a Roman AI,” Kuyda wrote in a Facebook post. “You can text with him about his life or just chat like you normally would – he will reply as Roman would have.”

Roman的许多好友也都试着与这机器人聊天，并纷纷提出反馈。有人说，这一聊天机器人带有治愈系，也有人觉得有些不寒而栗。Roman的父母同样给出了各自的见解。他母亲认为很庆幸科技的发达，通过与”他“的交流能更深入的了解她的儿子，而他的父亲则相反，始终无法接受与机器人聊天这种感觉，有时候机器的回复还是错误的，这让他一语惊醒意识到他的儿子早已是真正的离开了世界。
Many of Mazurenko’s friends have tried chatting with Kuyda’s AI creation and reported that he sounds unnervingly like him. Some find the chatbot therapeutic, while others describe it as creepy and unnatural. Even Roman’s parents have different options when it comes to the AI avatar. Her mother declared herself lucky to have such technology available, adding that by reading his responses to questions, she feels like she is learning more about her child. His father, on the other hand, finds it hard to talk to a computer program that sometimes sounds so much like his son most of the time, but sometimes answers incorrectly and reminds him that he is truly gone.

Roman聊天机器人的创造者Eugenia Kuyda声称她将继续与它聊天，帮助她缓解内心的痛苦。“与它聊天的所有信息都满载着浓浓的爱，亦或很多没有来得及和他说的话。即使，它不是一个真人，但给予了他朋友们的一种寄托方式。每逢寂寞的时候，他们就会与它闲聊”，她吐露道：“我是在向天堂发送着信息。而这种方式，总比瓶中信要好的多，因为它总会给你回复。”
Roman’s creator, Eugenia Kuyda, says that she continues to talk to the bot herself, as a way of dealing with the pain. “All those messages were about love or telling him something they never had time to tell him. Even if it’s not a real person, there was a place where they could say it. They can say it when they feel lonely. And they come back still,” she said. “[I’m] just sending a message to heaven. For me, it’s more about sending a message in a bottle than getting one in return.”

PS: 祝朋友Seven的心情快快好起来，能度过这一艰难的时刻，亲人的远去也是另一生命新的开始。愿逝者安息，从此，上帝也多了一位天使，守护着你和你家人。
Hope my friend Seven will feel better, to get through this tough time. People’s passing-away is another form of new life’s begin. May your loved ones rest in peace. And now, God had another angel to protect your family and look after you.

译者：BubbleSwan
Translated by BubbleSwan

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