Oh, there ARE such avatars, but the problem is in the degree of execution of them. In the SF Bay Area a year ago some guy 'cloned' his now dead fiancee digitally and had it 'talk' to him via messaging. It was of course just a dead puppet. The digital avatars you mention are not based on strong underpinnings. They do not have a true Self inside, no soul, and no ability to be a true avatar. Just chatbot hacks. In a way it is like some actor plays a doctor on TV, but the actor has no ability whatsoever to heal the ill. He just wears a white lab coat and looks purposeful. A chatbot could talk about getting laid, but it never has had sex and cannot understand the experience.
Although on the surface this looks plausible, I think it's bogus. A key problem is, that without a good enough model of a person's mind, you can't emulate them for long. For instance, if you were to ask a simulator for a person who's been dead for a year what they think about the Ohio train wreck, there's no way the AI can really guess the person's reaction to it. It might make some vague mumblings but it can't capture the person's emotions about the incident.
There are other failings for this too, but no need for me to lecture.
If Facebook's FAIR AI division does have emulators, I warrant that they will be breakable and they can't truly emulate a dead person well enough to pass for long. Of course, there may be some AI developers who have fooled themselves into thinking they can do this well, but their mechanism is going to be shallow and limited.
There is plenty of overambitious bogosity in the AI field; don't trust any goshwow media coverages.
Bullshit. The kid badly beat a woman. She was physically harmed; the kid was not attacked until people had to pull him off the victim. The kid had a toy taken away, in school where toys are not supposed to be in classes. You're promoting that a teacher deserved to be beaten? You're a complete idiot, a leftie fool, and a danger to society. I'm guessing you're a Soros puppet coming here to spread his bullshit policies. [Added now: I'm coming to suspect you're a Greta-level of autistic, and unable to comprehend that a school employee being severely beaten over a toy is the primary evil here, not violation of a kid's 'rights'.]
Stop turning this around and making the victim the one at fault. This kid is dangerous and he should not be allowed free in public. He has no control over his emotions and his actions. Trust the lefties to blame the victims.
Yeah, I think, new script.
Absolutism, rigid fanatic adherence to a cause, often precludes any thought other than the gospel of the 'cult'. I look on it as a kind of mental illness where someone is stuck or trapped in a framework and can't see outside to any alternatives. This could come from mental laziness or from disorders. The Left and some of the cultists seem to have enough mind problems to make a psychoanalyst rich. There's no question that the purple-haired reeee crowd need therapy.
The very freedom here that makes this site and its companions valuable also opens it to intrusion by the crazy. A big question is how far we can let them have their way before either they tear apart our online structure, or we have to get tough with them without becoming full-on nazis.
Although the FE thing is tapering down, another thing we're seeing is a wave where a couple names here post 'Einstein wuz wrong!' rants linking to highly credible - cough - YouTube videos and arguments by people criticizing general relativity without giving an alternative workable theory. I read some of the linked attacks which were sophisticated and just wrong at the same time, written by social science majors and not really physicists.
But my point here is more that there are some parties trying to stir controversy and make it easier to post bullshit under the guise of free speech. Once they'd get that opening, then they could push freedom to post cultural Marxism bullshit. We kind of have to draw a line regarding true free speech and obvious manipulation by faux-naive parties.
Regarding religion, we have to respect freedom of religious belief while at the same time not putting up with fanatic insistences. Now, the nature of organized religion is a whole different thing, seeing as how corrupt many major religious structures are. I guess we should respect freedom of individuals to have a belief system, but draw the line at anyone insisting everyone else must obey the tenets of the system.
I once thought the Beatles were just a very talented and successful band. Then over time I read many items showing how manipulated they were, and how managed their image was. Then when one looks at the content of their song lyrics there seems to be a certain amount of cultural manipulation going on. As for the composers of their music, there's evidence some of it was indeed handed to them by higher ups.
EInstein's theory of gravy is taught in respectable cooking schools all over the world. How can anyone disparage it.
Youtube videos are the best scientific truth available for people who shoot and eat squirrels and make moonshine.
We need to crush the Marxists pushing their perversions and we need to restore morality. And small percentages of the population have far too much control over our morality - we need to upend that.