This Monday the 12th version of the Future Congress was inaugurated, a scientific dissemination event developed in Chile, whose motto this year is “No Real Limit”.
One of the most striking aspects of the first day of this event, which will last until Saturday, was an interview held between a journalist and the biologist Charles Darwin, who “came back to life” through a digital reproduction and an algorithm of AI, trained with the knowledge that Darwin shared through all his publications.
Charles Darwin “came back to life” to talk about the climate crisis and the current problems of society in an interview
The dialogue with this “virtual Darwin” was possible thanks to the work of a team of Chilean researchers, who, through an AI, managed to simulate the thoughts of the British biologist.
The talk that this avatar of the scientist had with the CNN Chile journalist, Paloma Ávila, lasted about 20 minutes. In this instance, some milestones in Darwin’s life and some reflections on science were reviewed, with an important emphasis on the current climate crisis and contemporary society, from the perspective that the English naturalist would possibly have provided today.
To simulate the thoughts and consciousness of Charles Darwin, algorithms were trained to process everything he wrote in life, including letters, notes, books, and scientific publications. The data collection process made it possible for artificial intelligence to understand what Darwin’s thinking and depth of analysis was like. During the training of the AI, context information from his time and historical milestones were added to produce a result that resembled reality. In order to resolve the temporal gap with the present, since the scientist died in 1882, writings by contemporary “Darwinian” authors were added, who followed his line of thought.
Darwin’s presence at the event materialized thanks to a realistic virtual avatar, called MetaHuman, developed by the Merlin Research company, with technological support from Microsoft and Quantico.
During the conversation, Darwin’s avatar pointed out that his theory of evolution arose as a product of “many years of observation, experimentation and contemplation” of the nature.
When asked about the current climate change that the Earth is going through, the digital reproduction of the scientist stated that he was not surprised, stating that “people really didn’t fully understand the potential repercussions of the rapid industrialization that was taking place.”.
Along the same lines, in the conversation it was mentioned that global temperatures today are 1° higher than in 1880 and that by 2100, it is estimated that it will rise by 4°. Given this, the “digital Darwin” pointed out: “A change of just 1°C could have a massive impact.” While a 4°C increase in world temperature would completely transform the planet, since “we are talking about the extinction of thousands of species, enormous displacements of populations, due to drought, famine and economic uncertainty”.
The project that made this interview possible, called MetaDialogues, intends to continue training the system to be able to carry out two other similar instances this year with great thinkers of the past.
Check below the interview with Charles Darwin in the Future Congress 2023 of Chile:
