This AI artist wants African heritage to ‘live forever’ | CNN

Around the African continent, there is a saying: “When an elder dies, a library burns to the ground.” For Nigerian artist and filmmaker Malik Afegbua, that loss is not just a metaphor. “I don’t know what my great-grandfather looks like,” he told CNN. “I don’t have stories about him.” “There is no data, there is no library,” he said. Afegbua has launched LegacyLink, a project that hopes to not just preserve the experiences and lives of elders around the continent, but make them “live forever,” he says. He has been interviewing elders about their lives, recording their stories, capturing videos and making 3D scans of their family heirlooms, like masks and drums. With this data, he hopes to make “digital twins” of the elders and present them as holographic displays in public areas, like airports, where people can speak with them, using AI to bring their responses to life. The final displays will feel “like someone is standing in front of you, having a conversation with you,” Afegbua said. Users would be able to ask the digital elders a question about their lives and experiences, with AI generating a response based on Afegbua’s interviews with that per