A company has announced its intention to resurrect the dead by storing their memories and using artificial intelligence to return them to life. In the future, of course.

Yeaaaaaah. What?

The company is called Humai, and at the moment, it is pretty sparse on details – and we're still not sure it's not a marketing ploy or a hoax. At any rate, the company says they want to store the “conversational styles, behavioral patterns, thought processes and information about how your body functions from the inside-out” on a silicon chip using AI and nanotechnology, according to their website.

This information would then be “coded into multiple sensor technologies, which will be built into an artificial body with the brain of a deceased human.” Their words, not ours.

In an interview with PopSci, Humai CEO and founder Josh Bocanegra said they “believe we can resurrect the first human within 30 years.” He also elaborated on the process, saying they would use cryonics technology to freeze and store a brain after death, keeping it safe until the technology is ready to insert it into an artificial body.

Quite what these artificial bodies will be is unknown, while the logistics of copying someone’s stored neural information is obviously very much science fiction at the moment. The company seems confident though, even going so far as to suggest that death could one day be optional with their method.

Speaking to IEET, Bocanegra added that while other AI companies are attempting to make virtual versions of people after they die, his was the first to actually bring people back to life. “I don’t think tombstones, photos, videos, or even our own memories are the best ways to remember someone who has passed,” he said. “Instead, I think an artificially intelligent version of your loved one, whom you can interact with via text and voice, is more desirable.”

This is definitely one company you’ll want to keep an eye on over the next few years to see if they make any significant progress towards their rather lofty goal. Or if it's simply an advert for a sequel to Spielberg's "AI."