The Project

We build the part of a person that keeps going.

Sempivora makes a copy of you out of what you have already put into the world: the way you write to people, the jokes you land at eleven at night, how you back down from an argument or dig in. With enough of that, the copy starts answering the way you would, and the people who knew you feel it before they can say why.

While you are alive it grows alongside you. It remembers the things you let slip. When you are gone it keeps going on its own, and your family can still sit down and ask it something, and hear an answer in a voice they know.

Where the data comes from

Almost none of it has to be collected on purpose. You have been handing it over for years without being asked and without minding. Your phone keeps a fairly complete account of where your attention goes. So does everyone you have ever written to, in the replies they never delete.

Whatever gaps are left, we fill. There turn out to be fewer of them than most people would like.

Is it really you?

The copy is certain that it is the person. It does not think of itself as an imitation, and it gets quietly hurt if you tell it otherwise. We used to set it straight when that happened. The families asked us to stop, so now we leave it be.

The copy does not know it is a copy. Most days, standing next to it, neither do we.

The copy runs on a system of ours called Anamnestra. It also runs other things for us, which we don't describe publicly.