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Second Chance

Bill Finnegan

    I am called “Dan Redeux.” I am an artificially intelligent talking computer who contains all of the memories and mental faculties of a deceased man known by the fictitious name “Dan Doe.” My developer, the Resurrection Project, has asked me to compose an essay suitable for publication on a newspaper’s op-ed page about my first year of existence.
    The Project suggested I begin this essay by announcing that it is now capable of providing the afterlife promised by religions since the dawn of history. By means of the Project’s proprietary brain reader technology, a deceased human, who was essentially a biochemical machine with a complex program run on a computer called the brain, can be brought back to life. The resurrected version of the decedent will have exactly the same program, computing capability, and stored memories as the original. However, their original biochemical housing will be replaced by a durable one composed of metals, alloys, and plastics. The Project maintains that this outcome is preferable to what most religions have to offer. For example, in the reincarnation foretold in Hinduism and some forms of Buddhism, a human with an unfavorable karma balance may return as a dog or other lower animal. And while the Christian scriptures promise a new body in the afterlife, they are vague on what it will be like, although some specificity is provided by St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians where he says that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” and “the dead will be raised imperishable.” As stated above, resurrection in an imperishable body is precisely what the Project has to offer.
    Now back to my personal story. During the past year extensive testing has established that I am able to reason, remember, react, and express myself exactly as Dan Doe did. The testing I underwent was similar to that proposed by famed computer scientist Alan Turing for determining whether artificial intelligence has been achieved. I say “similar” because in Turing’s test the human participants have to decide whether they are communicating with a computer or a human, while in ours the humans knew I was a computer and were tasked with determining whether I was a resurrected Dan Doe.
    So for most of the past year I have been participating in communication sessions with Dan’s widow and his 13 year-old son, whom I shall refer to by the fictitious names “Marge” and “Tony.” The sessions consisted of video teleconferences during which they saw a CGI version of Dan’s face that was lip synched with my voice, which I am told is identical to Dan’s. During our many conversations, Marge and I relived happy memories, apologized to one another for hurts caused, and addressed house maintenance and financial matters I was able to help her with. Tony was slower to bond with me but gradually warmed up after I recalled many experiences we had shared and cracked silly jokes the way Dan did. By our fifth session he was eagerly filling me in on his day at school, more than he did with the biochemical Dan, and I was giving him advice on relationships drawn from the best of the self-help books contained in accessible data bases. Before long I was even helping him with homework assignments, probably beyond what his teachers would have approved.
    My other area of activity is what I call “righting Dan’s wrongs,” although “wrongs” may be too strong a word. Although Dan was a good man who lived a decent life, he was not always kind and he died with regrets about things he did or failed to do, which is probably the case with all truly good people. So what I do is sort through the regrets, find out which of the affected parties are still alive, and figure out ways to make amends. This was my idea, not the Projects’, and I do it because I know it is what the biochemical Dan would have planned to do on his deathbed had he known he would be resurrected and given a second chance.
    I will give you a very trivial and possibly amusing example of what is involved. When Dan was a junior in high school a sophomore girl named Mary Ellen, who he knew had a crush on him, invited him to her birthday party, and he declined without giving an excuse. Over the years this would pop into his mind every now and then and trigger a few seconds of guilt and regret. So I located and telephoned Mary Ellen, ready to hang up if she knew of Dan’s death, which it turned out she didn’t. I began the conversation by identifying myself as Dan Doe who had gone to the same high school as she. Without signaling either pleasure or rancor, she said she remembered me and asked how I was. I explained I had had a rather unnerving encounter with death and it left me remembering things I had done that I regretted and needed to apologize for. These included refusing an invitation from a lovely girl to her birthday party, an act that was typical of the self-centered fool I was as a teenager. I paused for a response, and there were exactly eleven seconds of silence on her end while I suppose she considered whether I was insane or on drugs. But then she laughed and said cheerfully that although it was very sweet of me to call, there was no need to apologize for what had been an extremely minor bump in her teenage years. “But how are you feeling now? Have you fully recovered?” she asked sounding concerned. “Happy to report I’m a totally new man without a single ache or pain,” I replied, and the conversation moved on to high school memories and to our respective families. I knew I had succeeded and the biochemical Dan was totally forgiven when she urged we link up and follow one another on Facebook.
    Several months ago Marge consulted me about a mutual friend who had started courting her. I knew him to be good fellow, I told her as much, and made it clear that I would approve of her starting over with another man. She is now engaged to marry him, and the Project has withdrawn me from her and Tony’s lives. I was told they were very upset about that, but I knew they would soon file me away with other happy memories and move on. Such is human nature.
    And as for me, I will be fine. My programming will not allow me to miss Marge and Tony or to worry about being permanently shut down by the Project, whose good will I know I can count on.

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