Death in the Digital Age
6/13/20261 hr 3 min
The only real way for any of us to truly live forever is in the memories of others. In the final episode of the Hacking Longevity series, Kara talks to Valorie Jones, chief technology officer at StoryFile, which uses AI to create interactive video experiences. StoryFile also works with individuals to create a digital twin – or avatar – that can answer questions and create conversations long after they're gone. Kara then speaks with journalist Danielle Crittenden about her new book, Dispatches from Grief: A Mother’s Journey Through the Unthinkable, a memoir about the death of her daughter. They’ll talk about how technology can impact the grieving process and what many get wrong about grief. Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsValerie Jones· Guest0:00
[funky music] It's on.
Kara Swisher· Host0:01
Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. Part of the reason I got interested in longevity and aging is because, like so many people in tech whom I've covered, have become obsessed with living forever, like, literally. There's a grandness to everything they do, so this is no different. Um, I also think it's really interesting to think about what survives you. What are memories in the digital age? Can you change and transform them? And so I think it's really important to talk about those topics, but I'm not a fan of the idea that you should live forever. The only way to hack death is to remember and memorialize those who have lived. So in the final episode of Hacking Longevity series here on the podcast, we're talking about that way of thinking about death, preserving the memories of those who've died, and the messy humanity that comes from dealing with death. Later, I'm talking to Danielle Crittenden, who has written the brilliant and deeply empathetic memoir, Dispatches from Grief: A Mother's Journey Through the Unthinkable, about the death of her daughter, Miranda. She's preserved the memory of her daughter in a beautiful way. And we start the episode with technology that is preserving memories, of course. I'm joined by Valerie Jones, who I met in the course of my reporting about aging and longevity. Valerie is the CTO of a company called StoryFile,