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Companies Want to Replicate Your Dead Loved Ones With Robot Clones 
Written by NATALIE O’NEILL
16 March 2016 // 02:00 PM CET
In 2003, the wife of a 55-year-old Vietnamese carpenter named Le Van died. Heartbroken, he dug up her grave, cast her body in clay and slept next to "her" for five years.
The story is unsettling, but there’s also something universal about his struggle to let go. Many grieving people feel an emotional connection to things that represent dead loved ones, such as headstones, urns and shrines, according to grief counselors.
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.
“It’s like when people stuff a pet cat or dog. We don’t stuff humans but this is a way of ‘stuffing’ their information, their personality and mannerisms,” said Bruce Duncan, managing director of Terasem Movement, a research foundation that aims to “transfer human consciousness to computers and robots.”
Written by NATALIE O’NEILL
16 March 2016 // 02:00 PM CET
In 2003, the wife of a 55-year-old Vietnamese carpenter named Le Van died. Heartbroken, he dug up her grave, cast her body in clay and slept next to "her" for five years.
The story is unsettling, but there’s also something universal about his struggle to let go. Many grieving people feel an emotional connection to things that represent dead loved ones, such as headstones, urns and shrines, according to grief counselors.
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.
“It’s like when people stuff a pet cat or dog. We don’t stuff humans but this is a way of ‘stuffing’ their information, their personality and mannerisms,” said Bruce Duncan, managing director of Terasem Movement, a research foundation that aims to “transfer human consciousness to computers and robots.”
