Thoughts
Mull invents in one of his books, 4th Five Kingdoms, a cave. The cave contains an “imprint” of everyone who has ever visited. The
imprint is like a clone of the person at the time they entered the cave. But the imprint can’t leave, can’t learn, can’t change. They can hold a conversation with you, but can’t remember it five minutes later.
I think it poses an interesting question about the significance of conversation. There’s a strong parallel to the current state of AI.
In both cases, the conversation feels shallow because the person that you’re talking isn’t real, because they don’t remember things. But surely talking to the imprint of someone has the potential to be as significant for you as talking to the real person. As long as it’s a single conversation, it’s no different from talking to a past version of someone.