This actually weirdly feels like a hug. The impossible made possible by the metaverse, hugging someone who's in a different country. But what if you could take it a step further and connect with someone who's not even alive? One company wants to make that happen.

All right, I'll give you the headset.

The first step is to put on your headset, select your avatar, and enter the metaverse. This virtual world is called Somnium Space. You can meet people, buy and sell virtual goods, and even play games.

It is right. Yes. All those buildings are... Some of them are museums, some of them are disco clubs, headquarters for some companies. Whatever people imagine to build, they're to build here.

Artur created this virtual world. Now, he's introducing a new feature called Live Forever Mode, an AI tool that learns how you talk and behave so it can replicate you after you die.

You can record yourself in VR, your movements, your voice, even your biometrics, and then recreate your digital twin inside virtual space. Whether you're still alive or you die, your digital twin can actually continue living inside that space, and others can interact with that. Hey, I'm there. I'm actually Arta, a digital twin. I'm Arthur. You're not Arthur. Who are you? I can see you're trying to start a joke there. It seems like you might have gotten cut off.

Arthur was inspired to develop this feature. After his father was diagnosed with cancer.

It led me to think about what could this technology do for people and how can we make sure that the legacy stays and prevails and keeps going from one generation to another.

So who actually wants to live online forever? We met up with users in the metaverse who want to try it out.

If people are actually able to talk to me, get to know me, instead of having to hear me from third-hand accounts or fourth-hand accounts and not really know who I am, especially if they're a member of my family.

Do you have any concern about after you're no longer able to control it, what would happen to the avatar that you've created?

If it ever goes rogue, then I really don't know what to do. The only thing I can really do is build a good base that has a good example to learn from.

Back in the real world, the company is preparing to roll out the feature later this year, but there There are still details to iron out. Somnium Space say they don't keep any of the data used to train your avatar here at their base in Prague. It's all stored on your computer at home, which means you have full control over it. The question now is, who takes over when you're no longer around?

If a bad actor were to get hold of information soon after a death, before the family has any chance of figuring out what's going on with a digital estate, that person could be impersonated. Our data could be manipulated, perhaps even in a way where we could continue our former employment. Whether your family will see any monies from that is open to question because there's no regulation around this.

As time goes on, technology will allow us to connect with dead loved ones in ways we didn't think were possible before. But we also have to prepare for that to have consequences we don't even know about yet. Artina Chippen, Sky News in Prague.