James Vlahos of Hereafter AI Discusses Avatars That Preserve the Memories and Thoughts of Real People - Voicebot Podcast Ep 168

James Vlahos is the founder of Hereafter AI, a company that
enables anyone to create a chatbot avatar of a real person.
James' interest in chatbots started in the 1980s on a Commodore
PET computer and was rekindled in 2015 when, as a reporter, he
wrote a story about PullString's work on Hello Barbie. That led
to him creating Dadbot, a chatbot that captured the memories and
thoughts of his father that at the time was battling Stage IV
cancer. 


After completing a book on tech's many decades of voice assistant
innovation called Talk to Me, James founded Hereafter AI in 2019.
We discuss what he learned from his early experience with
rudimentary chabot designs of the 1980s and how his experience
building a chatbot to memorialize his father offered unique
insights into the tradeoffs of these types of endeavors. We cover
a series of questions James has not been asked before and he
offers some interesting insights that will be of value to any
voice assistant designer. 


James earned a degree in journalism from the University of
Oregon. Over his career, he has written for many publications
including The New York Times, GQ, Popular Science, Popular
Mechanics, National Geographic Adventure, and WIRED.