Visuals by Sam Wolson. Illustrations by Gaia Alari.
When the Italian artist Gaia Alari was a little girl, her father, Gabriele, used to read her fairy tales in the evening. Sometimes they were simple stories, but he would also read her darker, more complicated material, including Dante’s Inferno. “As I got older, I thought a lot about what all those stories meant,” Gaia recalls. “In all of them, death is censored. Dante tells you that, after you die, you continue to exist in the afterlife. Whereas in the fairy tales, you don’t die at all.”Yet, in reality, death is ever present—an idea that has become more acute for Gaia as her father, who is seventy-seven, has struggled with health problems. As she considered the prospect of a future without him, Gaia began exploring the offerings of the booming digital-afterlife industry, specifically a product known as a death bot, which takes the memories, images, and other data of a person and makes an eternal A.I. replica.In a remarkable interactive story published today, our visual-features editor, Sam Wolson, blends Gaia’s art work and interviews he conducted with daughter and father, as well as examples of the conversations that both have with the death bot. In it, we see the full range of possibilities and limitations of this technology. In one interaction, Gaia confronts the death bot with a painful memory:Gaia: I remember one time I was doing a stupid swimming race, and you scolded me because I didn’t place first. I didn’t feel like doing the race, I wanted to stay in bed.A.I. Gabriele: Ah, I remember that moment! It’s true, sometimes competition can be intense, and I only wanted you to give your best. I hope that, despite everything, you found a way to have fun and enjoy the experience!Gaia: No, then I stopped because there was too much pressure. Sometimes you were a bit of an asshole.A.I. Gabriele: I understand, and I’m sorry if I put pressure on you at that moment. It was never my intention to make you feel bad. I only wanted you to be able to give your best, but sometimes expectations can be heavy.Gaia is moved by this interaction but also frustrated and unsettled—this doesn’t quite sound like the father she remembers from childhood, or still knows today. “Eventually I started wondering,” she says, “why do I need to talk to the real Gabriele if this one is better?” Yet the real-life conversations that this experience prompts turn out to be moving, surprising, and deeply illuminating.Read the full feature »Editor’s PickAn Inconvenient Moment for an Extreme Global Heat WaveA heat dome descended across Europe in June. Then millions of Americans experienced the hottest Fourth of July in history. Now the heat’s back in Europe, where the organizers of the Tour de France are speculating whether they’ll have to cancel stages of the race. And all of this, Bill McKibben writes, is putting pressure on political leaders across the globe. Read or listen to the story »More Top StoriesThe cartoonist Edward Steed captures how New Yorkers have gathered around the city to watch the World Cup.After the NATO summit in Turkey, Ishaan Tharoor examines Donald Trump’s conspicuously chummy relationship with the Turkish President, and what it means for NATO as a whole.“Birthright” and “Giant” are both plays that tackle Jewish identity and explore interpersonal rifts over Israel. But only one lets the ugliness linger, Emily Nussbaum writes.“I no longer wanted you. You wanted to kill me for that. You thought I was a bastard as I made you breakfast.” Read “Broken,” by Rabih Alameddine, the first installment of our Flash Fiction series, featuring very short stories posted weekly during the summer.The most-clicked item in yesterday’s newsletter was about how researchers discovered that people are speaking less and less each year.Our Culture PicksA book: Éric Rohmer’s “Élisabeth” proves the filmmaker could have also had a career as a novelist.A TV show: The Emmys may have snubbed “Industry,” but our critic loves it!A bite: A cold treat is a divine thing on a hot afternoon. Try Helen Rosner’s ginger-lemonade popsicles.Puzzles & GamesToday’s Crossword Puzzle: Dough used to make tamales—four letters.Catalogues: Can you sort the items into the correct order?Shuffalo: Can you make a longer word with each new letter?Laugh Lines: Test your knowledge of classic New Yorker cartoons.Daily Cartoon“It’s Grandma’s classic viral chickpea matcha miso caramel ‘Marry Me’ protein brownies!”Cartoon by Natalie HorbergP.S. The singer Bonnie Tyler died yesterday, at the age of seventy-five. She was best known for the hit song “Total Eclipse of the Heart”—a karaoke staple. “To perform it properly means that by the time a singer gets to the end—to that final, shredding ‘I really need you tonight!’—she should be in a state of complete psychic collapse,” Amanda Petrusich once wrote. 🎤Austin Elias-de Jesus contributed to today’s edition.
