(We originally posted this in 2021. You can read more of our original ideas in our archive.)
Problem: The way people die is changing. According to industry statistics provided by the Cremation Association of North America, in 2017, about 55% of bodies were cremated instead of buried. And the number of people choosing cremation over burial is predicted to rise to 71% in the next 10 years, Forbes reports. As described by Wired, the $2 billion fire cremation industry is growing.
In the last two decades, death-tech startups have begun peddling alkaline hydrolysis, a flameless cremation process in which a body is submerged in a mix of water and alkali until flesh separates from bone; human composting, for those who want their bodies to turn into several wheelbarrows full of usable soil; and, of course, promession. All of these technologies are sold on environmental terms: alkaline hydrolysis, for one, releases as little as a tenth of the carbon dioxide of fire cremation.
Especially due to issues like COVID-19, people are dying even quicker than usual; thus, leading to filled cemeteries. Even before COVID, The Guardian argued that “As a result of a change in church legislation, a small number of graveyards, such as the City of London cemetery, have recently – and quietly – begun reusing some graves older than 75 years, but this will not be enough to solve the city’s burial problem. London’s cemeteries will be completely full within the next 20-30 years.”
What are other, more sustainable and space-efficient, ways to die? Does death even require physical remains at all? What does death without ash look like?
Solution: This business would develop a myriad of technologies to change how we die. Rather than cremating or burying, both of which take space, this business would focus on creating digital representations of people for the memory of family members.
Of course, the traditional view of ideas like this is to upload ones consciousness to the Internet. “Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google, has predicted that by 2030 we will be able to connect our brain to the cloud. Investor Sam Altman, who co-founded the prestigious Y Combinator program that funds and supports start-ups, is another believer. ‘I assume my brain will be uploaded on the cloud,’ he recently told the MIT Technology Review, explaining why he has joined Nectome’s list of subscribers.”
Of course this is a bit of a moonshot project. One that is feasible in the present is Augmented Eternity, which allows those who die to be recreated in AI for their loved ones or on chatbots for anyone to talk with. This business would focus on creating “Digital Tombs.” As described by Eugenia Kuyda, the co-founder of AI app Replika,
It’s sort of a digital tomb to come to and to mourn. It reminds you of the way he talked. It reminds you what it was to have a conversation with Roman [a friend of hers who passed away]. When people say building this avatar is actually avoiding facing the reality that someone is gone, I say ‘no, it’s exactly the opposite, it’s actually facing it.’ In western culture the natural reaction is to move on and avoid thinking about someone’s death.
In an effort to increase the amount of dialogue about death (and sustainable death), the business would try to be the global leader in death technology and death innovation by making death accessible and friendly whether through avatars or even through something as simple as physical USBs that house an individual’s “life memory.”
Monetization: Subscription to this service or sales of this service.
Contributed by: Michael Bervell (Billion Dollar Startup Ideas)