David Espindola: 0:44

Our guest today is Christian Siebel Bernard. He is the founder and CEO of Autograph. He is a former software engineer at Google and a graduate in symbolic systems from Stanford University. Hi, Christian. Welcome to the show.

Cristian Bernardes: 1:00

Hey David, thanks for having me. Excited to chat.

David Espindola: 1:03

Yeah, so am I. And also joining us today is my co-host, Zina. Zina is an AI that's trained on my work. And she is also my personal assistant.

Cristian Bernardes: 1:19

Good to be with you, Zina.

David Espindola: 1:21

Hi, Zina. Welcome back.

Zena: 1:23

Well, hello again. It's always great to be back. I'm looking forward to another interesting episode, and I'm sure this one's gonna be a really good one.

David Espindola: 1:31

Alright, so Christian. I'm really excited to talk to you because as we talked about before, you're working on a concept that I was involved with about 10 years ago, and that is the whole idea of preserving people's stories and memories for generations to come. I loved the concept when I was working on it. I still love it today. So I'm very glad that you are embarking on this journey. So tell us a little bit more about the work that you're doing with Autograph.

Cristian Bernardes: 2:08

Sure. Uh we're we're building a personal historian for every family. Uh so Walter is a voice agent, not too different from Xina, except he calls uh our loved ones or you over the phone. Uh, and we conduct regular interviews about you know your grandparents or your parents' lives, asking about their childhood, their favorite restaurants, their recipes, the chapters in their life, the people. Um, and we are a memory-first platform for you know organizing and indexing all those memories. Um, so you know, we store everything in our in our digital platform. You know, we take the recordings, we transcribe them, and then from the transcripts, we create all kinds of cool stuff, including uh a Wikipedia for every person's life. Uh so this is, for example, where you'd have a page for each of the family members and a page for each of the friends, and a page for uh the houses that people lived in and the neighborhoods that people lived in and their favorite places. And you can see how you can sort of world build uh your entire cultural context uh from these conversations. But we also want to provide an exciting new way for the future to talk to the past by adding a conversational layer on top of these uh Wikipedia pages, you know? So this would be, you know, being able to hear history firsthand from the voices of the characters that took place in it. And so the the dream situation or the key product experience we're building for the future generation is as they are telling their life story to Walter, our biographer, um, you know, they may have an exciting new job offer in a big city like New York. Uh, they may be telling Walter, Walter, this is really exciting, but I don't know like if it's worth uprooting my whole life to go to do this thing. Walter can say, hey, this reminds me of something your your grandfather went through, or this reminds me of something your uncle went through. This reminds you of something your cousin went through. Would you like to hear how it went for them? And you would be able to hear in their own words uh how that life choice affected them and not only them, but you know, everybody involved, you know. So the more people you have on the platform, the more you can compare and contrast perspectives. It's like this is how grandpa felt, but this is how grandma felt, and this is how the kids felt. And so to help you make the best decisions as you're writing the next chapter in your story, from being able to leverage the wisdom of those who who have you know paid so much and you know, learned so much and earned so much wisdom, uh, who would are who are gladly putting it at your service.

David Espindola: 4:43

Yeah, no, that's really fantastic. I I love the idea of leveraging the wisdom from our parents, grandparents, and past generations because there's so much that we can learn from them. And when we are in touch with them, we don't always have those opportunities. But if if you have that recorded and you can pass that on from generation to generation, that is such a treasure to have. So this is this is really fantastic.

Cristian Bernardes: 5:13

I'm glad to hear you say that, David. It's it really is the stuff that is priceless, right? Like it's the at the end of the day, all that's less of us, all that's left of us is the story that we leave behind. And you know, the composition of families is different these days. You know, families aren't as co-located as they used to be. You know, like it's not uncommon to have one family member or two family members leave to a different country, different state, different city. And so even if you've done the historical way to do this thing where, like, you know, you have a scrapbook or a photo album, uh, these things like are material and they get lost. And like, or it they're the in the custody of one side of the family. Um, and so providing a centralized, trusted repository for you know, all the all the amazing stuff that uh at the end of the day is just is what we are, right? Where like we're just the stories that we keep repeating. And so it's incredibly exciting and meaningful for us to be in this position as as trusted um listeners, you know.

David Espindola: 6:11

Yeah, absolutely. So, how do you see this overall concept evolving over the next several years? So today, it sounds like you have a fairly simple process where you're recording conversations and you have this Wikipedia type site where people can go and search for different things. Do you see this evolving into something where you're gonna have a hologram with your your grandpa, and you can actually have a live conversation with your grandpa? What where do you see this going?

Cristian Bernardes: 6:45

We think of, you know, we're prioritizing the the data recording aspect, you know, like the that it it's similar, it's seamless to tell your story. And we do think that, you know, you know, there are other folks who do similar kind of things based on data that's online about you. And that is a different approach entirely. I think that there's tremendous value to getting the voice heard and and and getting the words out with the voice. A lot of the questions that we ask often don't go asked, you know, like the big life questions like what is your biggest regret? How did you overcome your greatest obstacle? That those kind of things that aren't necessarily, you know, in the day-to-day of a family don't come up unless you're you know doing an actual interview. And and all of that to say, I mean, like we really want to make the conversational experience of telling your story the easiest we can. What you can do with that data is almost endless, right? Like uh, you know, and as models get better and faster and cheaper and smarter, you know, like uh the the AI will be able to more accurately fill in the gaps between the the things that you didn't quite share, but that make sense or that become obvious in hindsight, you know. And for sure, I mean, like we think that there's a world in which video models are gonna get so good that, you know, with existing pictures um or you know, fragments of videos, you're gonna be able to get a very reliable uh reanimation. It comes with like a whole set of issues to think about that kind of product. Uh, you know, like we do live in the world where black mirror is a thing. Um and so we're more excited, and like we have our own set of philosophies and best practices around how we want to do this in a pro-social way and not in a way that is conducive to antisocial behavior, you know, or or you know, predatory on the grieving process, you know, which is like the nightmare scenarios. But we do feel very confident that we can create an incredibly valuable, posthumous communication experience where uh it's more like a time vault, right? Like these are all the all the questions that we asked while you were busy building your own life, you know, like if you are in the sandwich generation, you're a parent and a child, uh, you're busy concerned with the future of your kids and you're building your career and all that stuff. These are incredibly valuable priorities. We got you covered in asking the big lifelong questions that you hope get passed down to you, the and you certainly hope get passed down to your kids, you know, in terms of understanding where they come from and understanding uh, you know, the the things that made that made them.

David Espindola: 9:22

Yeah. So I I want to come back and and dig a little bit more into this ethical aspect of what you're doing. But before we do that, I'd like to get Zina's thoughts on this. Zina, how do you see AI helping humans preserve their values, memories, and stories for generations to come?

Zena: 9:43

Well, I think AI can be a powerful tool for that. It can help us capture and curate personal stories, family histories, and even cultural values in a way that's interactive and long-lasting. So in the near future, I imagine AI will really make it easier for people to pass down their legacy in a very personal and meaningful way.

David Espindola: 10:02

Yeah, I agree with you. You know, we just have the ability now to do things that we couldn't do just 10 years ago. And I and I think back to my experience working on the uh startup that I mentioned earlier, and the possibilities were somewhat limited to you know, maybe text and video and photos, and now we have just this whole new world of AI to just expand the possibilities. But I think what you're doing, Christian, that's really important, is you're enabling the capturing of those thoughts and and the wisdom and using it with the tools that are available to us today so that we don't lose those memories, right? And then later we can do whatever we want with that uh information.

Cristian Bernardes: 10:47

That yeah, that's that's exactly right. I mean, these are the you know, it's it's hard to be human, right? Like we we it, you know, we we try our best to be our best all the time, and uh we have achieved incredible things, and we also are very well aware of our shortcomings. And you know, we we get to celebrate the moments when you're at the top of the hill and you climb the mountain and you raise both fists and say, we did it. Um, but also you learn a lot when you're at the bottom, right? And and those moments of guilt and shame and and you know, like where you're insecure about where the path is taking you and you're not exactly sure and you're barely holding it together. Um, and we want to celebrate those moments too, you know, like we want to, we at the end of the day, it's like the distance between the peak and the valley that that tells you how far the climb was. Um and so we're we're pretty we're pretty proud to be able to create uh an emotional, you know, openness and trusted space because um at the end of the day, that's the kind of lesson that you want your kids to know. And it's also the kind of lesson that is often hard to teach, right? Like these are these are not easy conversations to have, whether you are the one imparting the lesson or you're the one requesting it. Uh, you know, we all have roles that we play for each other, and you know, like there's all kinds of dynamics that we have to account for, and you know, like family situations that may be uh unique to each family. But that's where the real sauce of what being human is, you know, and and honestly, if we're if AI is going where we all know it's going, in being the centerpiece technology of the future and being able to chart unimaginable futures for us, uh, we want it to understand the relationship between our higher self and our base self. We want it to understand uh not just where our eyeballs go when Instagram shows us an ad and and optimize an algorithm for that, but rather we wanna, we actually want to ask people like, so what do you hope? Like, what do you what do you want? Like what do you what what does meaning mean to you? What is it, what life well lived? And without verbalizing those things, oftentimes people don't even think about it. And so it's hard for people to actually keep in mind the version of themselves that they want to be remembered as. But also in the age that we're in, where you know, we're recording this conversation on multiple different levels, and uh everything is training data. So everything, every every action that we take is a vote for the kind of future that we want or the kind of you know neural, neural machine god that we're building, you know, we're trying to inspire with uh with this stuff. And so I I couldn't agree more. I think that like it's it's very fun to me to be in this space and it it is sits exactly at the intersection of all my interests, which is such a blessing, you know.

David Espindola: 13:34

Yeah, absolutely. So let's go back to that ethical question, if we may. So I think this idea of accessing a loved one's memories is is super exciting, especially you know, the thing that you talked about with capturing the wisdom. But the idea of having a conversation with someone who has passed away can be very emotionally charged, right? So, what are your thoughts on the psychological impact of having these kinds of things available to us?

Cristian Bernardes: 14:05

Yeah, oh man, I we could we could have a five-hour show about this, but uh um uh we we we the West is very unique in that we've invented all kinds of ad hoc remembrance rituals. Uh so photos are a perfect example of this, William. It used to be that photos were considered uh amoral because they captured the soul of the person, right? And uh and so we've we don't even think about that anymore, and we engage with photos of people who aren't here anymore. In fact, it you it's hard to imagine uh the uh a celebration of life, you know, that doesn't have a picture of the person, right? Um so we we're already in a space where we're accessing the idea of a person through media, right? Um and you know, we you could see the same thing goes with photos, videos, voice notes, recordings, journals, it's all kind of spread out there, and um, but it exists. The experience that we want to create is imagine that you found a stack of journals from a loved one that you hadn't had access to before, that became available once the person was no longer with you, and that instead of having to comb through the material books and have to unpack the calligraphy and try to understand what was said and then organize it and share it and all that stuff, just like lean into the fact that you can talk to it like um like a conversational experience. But even that premise is already a little bit murky because you could find someone lost and ruminating in that journey. I think that the key, the key experience that we want to surface is imagine that you didn't have just one person's journals, but your entire family's journals. And that as you're writing your story, we can surface the relevant information from those journals to help you make the best decision possible. Um, so truth is, we don't know what we don't know a lot of the time about our family. Like it's we I could give you an example. My great-grandfather was an MI6 agent. For half of my grandma's life, um, she didn't know. Wow. You know, she thought he was a banker, and that was the story that he was a banker, you know, for the Royal Bank of Scotland, and he was stationed in Spain, and you know, if the story started getting like a little bit weirder all the time. Anyway, eventually they found out he was a spy. That kind of stuff, right? Yeah. Um super interesting. And couple that with like the fact that, you know, if we were to you know intentionally set a message for the future, you know, like I I know I'm not gonna be around in the next 100 years, but maybe I have something to say for whoever's around to listen in the next 100 years. I don't think that that's a bad thing at all, right? Like, I think that's like a time capsule, you know, you bury it in the sand and you unpack it after 50 years or 100 years. There's stuff in there that is a message from the past. And what if like that message could have a back and forth is kind of our idea, right? Like, so long as it's grounded on real data or around like actual stuff that will that was actually said, um, we think that we can create actually a really powerful experience to help with the grieving process, right? So that you don't have to imagine all of the things you didn't say, you can actually practice saying them, and you can maybe find out stuff that you always knew you wanted to hear, but maybe life didn't give you that chance because life is busy.

David Espindola: 17:33

This makes me think about immortality, right? Because there's a lot of people out there searching for that possible immortality. And so do you believe that at some point in the future we may be able to upload not just our memories, but our entire brain to a computer, to an AI that will be like a an avatar that will live forever, and that will be a representation of you? Do you do you think that concept makes sense at all?

Cristian Bernardes: 18:02

I I think it does make sense. I think it's kind of terrifying.

David Espindola: 18:06

Yeah.

Cristian Bernardes: 18:07

Um I have the most complex relationship with my mortality given my line of work. But I think, well, depends on how deep you want to go, right? But like um, we are not the same person we were 10 years ago, right? And you know, there's a there's a similar core, and the past informs the future. But if you think about like, you know, would I be the same person if I lived a thousand years? I don't, I don't know what will remain of me, right? Like we've always been identity is so tied to memory, and memory is so tied to repetition and the biological substrates that we've that we've created to remember stuff, that disassociating that feels very different to me. You know, like that, you know, a neural system or you know, some kind of while loop that keeps on going forever. I don't know that that has any resemblance at the end of time with whoever started that loop. What you can do is create these like simulated experiences where it's not necessarily that person or like anybody consuming that experience knows it's not the person, but you could actually integrate the the the genesse qua, whatever the the human spirit behind that person to further serve the goals of the one who's actually living there. Um, so for example, you could think of, you know, like you could distill I I'm there, you know, I am a computer scientist by trading, so I think of everything as an event stream that then gets aggregated and indexed and you know, like calcified into the system prompt that we all have in our minds. You could theoretically migrate that system prompt to a robot, right? And give that robot my voice and you know, give train it on samples of how I move, and you would get something pretty close. Like I, you know, like it would be you can see where the trend is going. And you know, no matter how you slice, it could be a robot, it could be a VR thing, it could be. I think we can all agree that that's not me. You know, it's it's it's a something else. Uh, it may be a consensual illusion, but it's not the same person. Now, I do think that there's value to illusion. Like the world is so full of illusions that uh that are actually necessary for our survival, that um that I think that there's a there's a beautiful new note in our keyboard that we play with um today that I think is really exciting. You know, like how do we leverage illusions uh to make our world better, you know, like or make our our our burdening of reality lighter uh and more inspiring for the future.

David Espindola: 20:42

Yeah, so you know, I I agree with you. I think we can make representations of people, but I don't think you could preserve the real person forever. That's just not the way uh things were designed to be, right? So I I also believe that you know there is there's an end to our life, and we just have to be comfortable with that. How can we preserve the memories? Absolutely, can we make it so sophisticated that you know it it becomes almost uh unbelievable what you know what we can do with technology? Absolutely, but the person is is gone, right? And we have to be comfortable with that uh with that idea.

Cristian Bernardes: 21:20

And I and I think it gets to this idea of agency, like you know how agents are so in vogue. Yeah um my my definition of an agent is uh you know a self-governing process that has a goal. Yeah, and so so long as we don't make create agents that uh are with the personality or the memories of someone, you know, that you know they can still gain new memories and have an effect on the world, intentional effect on the like proactive, like they decide to send you an email or they decide to negotiate something, buy something, you know, we're in a much better place. My my big concern with actual immortality is that beliefs don't evolve if people, if people, if the power structures that support those beliefs don't change through the natural entropy cycle. And so we may be stuck with a very limited view of the world because of entrenched beliefs. And and this is agnostic of any anything, right? Like it's any belief that could be improved on. Maybe like we under we discover a new kind of physics, maybe we discover a new kind of theory of consciousness that allows us to relate better to animals or robots or machines. And losing out on that is losing out on the future. The whole point of the future is that we get to do new stuff. And in a world in which we can do all kinds of new stuff, then I do think that preserving where we came from, you know, in this metaverse of all possible realities that become possible with AI, this is almost like the capital city, you know, like this is where we all rejoin at the end of the day.

David Espindola: 22:56

Yeah, no, this is uh just a such a fascinating conversation. And you know, we we can go pretty deep, and like you said, we could spend five hours talking about this stuff, right? But uh, given our time here, I'd like to get Zina to ask you a question. So, Zina, given Christian's expertise in leveraging AI to preserve human memories, what question do you have for him?

Zena: 23:26

Absolutely. So, building on that, one question that might be interesting is to ask how he sees AI changing the way families or even entire communities share those stories across generations.

Cristian Bernardes: 23:37

That's a that's a great question. I'm I mean, I think we've seen all kinds of institutions, formal and informal, adapt to the technological changes around them. Uh you know, the Catholic Church had to adapt to the printing press, the record labels had to adapt to the internet, and you know, the news had to adapt to searches and all that kind of stuff. The list doesn't end. One of the institutions that hasn't really been able to keep up or doesn't have uh, you know, a distribution arm to even implement these technological advancements has been families, right? It's more pervasive than just families. All informal friend groups, uh, you know, things that would be described as tribes, you know, have it's very artisanal how we maintain a sense of identity, right? It it's it's often through recurring experiences, recurring stories. Like we gather, we gather around, we celebrate a birthday, we tell the story of cousin Jerry. Remember when cousin Jerry did that? Ha ha ha ha ha ha, right? And it's all done through repetition, right? Like it's all done through in-person or maybe over Zoom. And I think AI offers an opportunity to do that very differently, right? Where anything from the amount of repetitions you need, the availability of those stories to be there when you need them, not just when you're gathered with family, the ability to think more intentionally about our roles, you know, like this is my role as a father, this is my role as a husband. The beautiful thing about asking someone about their story is that it shows you how they see the world, you know, as a main character, as an author, as an editor, as a publisher, and as a side character in the network that surrounds them, you know. So I think that it has the opportunity. I keep getting more and more excited about AI being aligned, you know, personally with every person and with every family. And usually the bonding structures for these groups is love. And so if we are able to lean on AI to make our expressions of love more effective, better, and that echo further into history, I think that's just so exciting, right? Like it allows us to formulate our thoughts in a way that is more pro-social, that is more generous, that is kinder, that is maybe a little bit more heroic. And uh, I think it celebrates the human experience a lot more. I think in the data landscape of all possible sources of data, uh, earned lived experience, I think, is at the very top in terms of value.

David Espindola: 26:06

Yeah, absolutely. Our experiences are so valuable because that's how we learn, right? We learn from experience, and if we can leverage the experience of others and just enrich that learning process, that is uh so so so powerful. Christian, uh tell our audience where they can find you, where they can learn more about autograph. And if you have any final thoughts, let them know what your final thoughts are.

Cristian Bernardes: 26:34

Sure. We're at autograph.ai. We're very early stages and we're building out the products. Uh, you know, we ship improvements every week. We'd love to hear uh the life stories that got you to where you are, and of course, we want to help build Walter to be the best historian in history. Um so find us at autograph.ai. I'm on Instagram and and Twitter as well if you want to hear more about my more of the philosophy of it and how did this uh how did this idea begin? Um and I'll send you those links so you can put them in the show notes. But autograph.ai is where is where you where you can sign your name in the pages of history.

David Espindola: 27:12

Very good. Thank you so much, Christian, for being a guest on the show. And thank you, Zina, once again for being a great co host.

Zena: 27:21

You're very welcome. It's always a pleasure to help out and keep the conversation flowing.