Ask Spling – Episode 6: Where’s the line for digital resurrection?

In Episode 6 of ‘Ask Spling: Reel Talk and Real Life’… Spling answers: “Where’s the line for digital resurrection?” – a question from Anon.

Welcome to Ask Spling. So where do we draw the line between a heartfelt tribute and digital grave robbing? I kind of think of Paul Walker from The Fast and the Furious, and I think in that moment that was a beautiful tribute, being able to have a send-off for the star of The Fast and the Furious, doing so in a respectful way. Also think of the character in Star Wars (Peter Cushing) that was brought back to life.

And also think of more recent things like the Red Hot Chili Peppers documentary where they used AI to recreate a voice (for Hillel Slovak). I think sometimes it’s probably the debate ranges into the idea of ownership of IP in terms of our digital representations. And already people are basically selling off part of themselves in terms of images, in terms of usage.

So it really is like, where do we draw the line and how do we actually reconcile those things? What is okay? What is not okay? And I think it’s also to do with taste. There’s a thought that this person might not want to have had that carried out. They might not want to have been part of this next section or this next chapter.

There’s no way for us to actually truly know what they wanted. So maybe we are going to have to get to the point of actually leaving a will or something like that to say what we would like to actually be able to be possible with our images and our representations.