A NEW ONLINE PROJECT BEING launched today offers users the ability to leave a new computer version of themselves behind after they have died.

Intellitar’s program, Virtual Eternity, lets users create a personal avatar which can maintain contact with other people after that person has died.

“Through your Intellitar you will be able to preserve and share your personality, life experiences, knowledge, wisdom and memories in a way never before available,” the website claims.

The program will also synthesize the user’s voice, so that if it is addressed, it will respond and sound like its creator.

The company’s founder and CEO Don Davidson told Alabama Local that people should consider the avatar “a digital clone”.

His avatar is already online.

The whole project raises questions about how a person’s avatar, potentially containing a lot of personal information, might be used or controlled by others.

Davidson told NetworkWorld that accounts could have a custodian as well as an owner and that user’s don’t have to record their voices. He said: “users have a privacy option to determine if they want their Intellitar to interact with other users or not”.

He said the project aims to extend geneaology websites: “We want to give users the gift of immortality while giving future generations a sense of connection to their roots.”

Davidson said he foresees training and education applications for this program, whereby tutorials are provided via the avatars.