Spring 2019
While we don’t know where we go after we die, we do know that which makes us human is what’s inside. In the same thought, so much of who we are increasingly exists in our devices, which remain behind after we die.
Outlive Yourself
What if the technology that we live with could allow us to live beyond our physical selves, connecting us more deeply to our survivors and future generations?
Port.al is a method of preservation for the digital age. The system is designed to learn from you as it lives with you, spanning one lifetime to the next.
What if we could outlive ourselves?
Photo credit: Julie Johnson
Life Stages Bring
New Questions
Mike lost his father at 21. Now 35, with young kids of his own, he has questions for his father that he never predicted.
Photo credit: Heather Mount
The Unknown
is Unknown
Bonnie relied on her husband throughout their marriage. After his death, she finds it difficult to navigate his digital assets in order to carry on with daily life.
Photo credit: Charlie Howell
Living in
Memories
Bertha has Alzheimers. Her granddaughter never knew her without the disease. Her memories are now inaccessible to her loved ones.
Personal Anecdotes
Self Preservation
When facing end of life, there is a lot of information that gets lost for survivors. The world's old will soon out number the young, impacting
future generations.
Invisible Assets
We have established ways to preserve
important physical assets for our survivors. However, as we are increasingly entwined with our devices, digital is an ‘invisible” medium, presenting complexity.
Maybe it doesn't have to be this way
Future Trends
Photo credit: Getty Images
A Lifetime of Data
Digital Natives are growing into adulthood.
What is the implication of a life time of access to data? While we learn from the digital world, there’s a seamless ability for the digital world learn about us.
Photo credit: CNET
When Technology
Lives With Us
We are living with technology that is designed to learn from us and get smarter in order to make our lives better. Designers dream of changing the way we live with new technology.
Photo credit: Business Insider
When Technology Outlives Us
The potential for AI is enabling this technology not only to learn from us but to outlives us.
What can happen when the technology we interact with
and the devices that know us deeply outlive us?
Interviews:
End-Of-Life Guides
Knowledge goal: To understand the mindset of someone facing end of life. What do they care about? What are loved ones concerned with?
Jill Schock
Death Doula
Rev. Christina Shu,
Palliative Care Chaplain
Wendy Schmelzer
Social Worker
Jamie Holtzmann
Hospital Social Worker
Interviews:
The Bereaved
Knowledge goal: To understand the mindset of people that have lost someone at various stages of life, and across different relationships.
Arlene
Lost parents, brother
Andrew
Lost parents, brother
Sara
Lost Father
Louise
Lost Husband
Interviews:
Legacy Preservation
Knowledge goal: To understand the efforts to preserve the self, memories, and family relationships.
Barbara, Standish
Medium
Mandy Benoualid
Digital Memorials, Qeepr
Seth J. Bookey
Family Historian
Philip Goodman
Life Insurance
Interviews:
Interacting With AI
Knowledge goal: To understand future/potential human/machine interactions and learning.
Jessie Kawata
Human Centered AI
Michelle Katz
AI Personalities
Ben Bland
Empathetic AI Researcher
Jason Hsin
Programming VUI Assistants
"Our loved ones in the afterlife are our support system in a different way that we can't have here." (Barbara, Medium)
Port.al, the ".al" stands for afterlife, is a digital afterlife information system designed to learn from you as it lives with you, capturing logistical and emotional assets of your digital existence.
The system consists of an operating system that interacts with you and an interactive legacy platform that interacts with your survivors.
Welcome to
Learns the “digital you” across its applications. The more you interact with your devices, the more the system learns about you and the smarter and more personal the OS becomes.
Meet your AI assistant, Aia
An AI assistant learns the “digital you.”
Applications
Each application is specifically designed to both assist you in this life and capture information as you interact with them, to learn about you.
Channel
A communication platform that visualizes digital interactions based on relationships, making communication more integrated and personal.
Features:
Tags communication to context/relationship
AI personalizes interactions based on context, relationships.
Learns:
-
Interactions and context
-
Relationships and contacts
Dream Catcher
A smart vision board to visualize dreams, hopes and aspirations.
Features:
Collect visions for each area of your life.
Uses predictive analytics to understand and make suggestions.
Learns:
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Hopes, values, dreams,
-
Vision boards become data sets to train AI.
Vision
Capture memories and seamlessly preserve experiences.
Recognize Familiar Faces
Uses facial recognition to learn relationships over time.
Photo reviewers can tag their narrative.
Categorizes Memories
Uses machine recognition to automatically categorize photos according to content.
Smart Search
Search photos using natural language.
Learns
Through these searches, the OS learns even more about you and your relationships.
Digital Estate Planning
Digital estate planning is baked into system installation, as the user clicks through the prompts to:
1. Set up a digital legacy
2. Provide instructions on their accounts should something happen to them
3. Assign a digital proxy.
AL Mode
After a loved one's passing, AL mode, curates their digital assets in an intuitive, visual way, giving survivors control in managing their loved one's digital estate:
-
What assets exist
-
What actions need to be taken
-
What needs to transfer ownership.
'The Cloud'
Phases are connected by an information cloud where your digital existence is curated from the OS, based the most meaningful facets of an individual's life, inspired by an 'ethical will.'
Beliefs & Values
Family Life
Experiences
Favorite Things
Hopes & Dreams
Professional Life
Meet your Digital Medium, Aia
Your AI assistant becomes the intermediary to communicate your digital existence to your survivors.
After you die, your format lives on digitally, you can exist anywhere. alt.ar is an interactive legacy platform for your digital existence to interact with survivors through a series of IoT products.
Smart Home IoT Platform
Connects your survivors to your digital existence.
Vacations we've been on
Places we've lived
Kaleidoscope Interface
al.tar’s interface is inspired by a Kaleidoscope, where each color and formation interact to reflect a visual pattern. Memories interact with each other in a similar way to reflect a whole person.
Digital Heirlooms Monocle
Redefining an heirloom for the digital age. These wearable devices allow access to a loved one’s digital existence wherever you are, physicalizing our digital "intangibles;"passing down wisdom, stories, favorite songs, photos, places.
Artificial Intuition (AI)
Aia mines your digital existence to give relevant advice based on previous interactions and experiences.
Wireframe
