Yes, just like most apps are free to use.

We're still exploring how to make money with Ankh. In an ideal world, we would be charging for secure, longer-term storage of your data and some post-death services. These might include contacting family to handle the encryption password for the aforementioned secured data (so it doesn't get tossed after your death), providing instructions to preserve your DNA samples, etc.

To be clear, we are also doing this to make money, eventually.

Questions fit into four primary categories:

* About you yourself

* Your social interactions

* Your views of the future

* Those focused on generating lots of data (like making recordings)

All of this encompasses a large variety of questions: silly questions, mundane questions about work or family, probing questions about deception or grief, esoteric questions covering interests and hobbies, etc.

There are also activities (think: minigames) and suggestions to create and add data beyond the current capabilities of the Ankh app.

Being asked the same thing multiple times provides additional data as you answer in different life situations.

That said, you can use the menu to ban questions that are simply irrelevant or that you don't want to answer. Even your ban choices are useful data.

Accessibility features are not in place yet. Probably not.

Missing out on the rich nuance of speech data is certainly a setback. Still, any data beats no data. Can you express yourself via artwork, an instrument, or dancing from time to time?

Also, remember: each of us is “mute” in some respect when it comes to fully accessing or displaying our personality, so the gap may be narrower than it seems. Diligently adding data to compensate may be a must for everyone.

Or perhaps we're all screwed. Mute or otherwise.

Ask a trusted assistant to handle the app, record you, and upload data for you. Switching helpers now and then keeps the record well-rounded and not biased by a single assistant.

Please make sure it's someone you can say very private things in front of, occasionally, and ideally - without much discomfort. Perhaps they can leave the room while you record voice answers.

More accessibility features are coming in the future.

It is planned, but not yet implemented.

It is planned, but not yet implemented.

Questions will appear again randomly, after a while. Typically not on the same day.

Primarily through the Ankh Discord. Discord is an application, kind of like an online public discussion forum.

You can also email us at support@getankh.com.

At this stage, you or a family member would use the Export feature and preserve the data manually (hard drives, etc.).

Once servers are implemented, your family may sync the data in an end-to-end encrypted form, keeping the password to themselves. Much later the family can release the password when sufficient time has passed - and either they consider your data harmless or they trust Ankh enough.

Probably - you should make sure to use the Export feature from time to time. Then you can import to a new device. Don't be too bummed over lost data, you can always generate more! It's better than no data, and soon you'll gather more than you did previously.

Your phone may have a cloud backup feature independent of Ankh. Check if it captured your Ankh app data.

We don't have a solution implemented yet. The only option right now is to use the Export feature, save that data elsewhere, and start over with the app.

Planned features like server sync, more robust deletion options, and a much-improved Export should alleviate this situation.

Please let us know if you're already having storage space issues.

This is hard to estimate. On the low end, maybe DNA predominantly drives personality and just weeks of recordings and answers are enough. Unlikely.

Ankh provides guidance - an "effective data" goal. We estimate this to be a bare minimum. The goal is loosely based on an argument of identifying, among a trillion identical twins of you, one with the most similar personality - and how many "effective bits" of data are needed to do this identification. Then, several approaches are taken to roughly estimate how regular bits of added data convert to "effective bits," trying to account for redundancy.

If you'd like to explore these ideas, please get in touch via the Ankh Discord or support@getankh.com.

Truth be told, no amount of data may be enough to get a perfect digital resurrection. In some sense it depends on the fidelity you, the end user, would be satisfied with. Maybe some light personality damage from passing through death's door is an acceptable price for survival?

Even silly prompts (farts, favorite cartoon hero) tease out reactions and data more serious questions could not. Perhaps a broader range of questions is exactly what's needed to triangulate deeper personality traits and ultimately zero in on your overall personality.

Furthermore, skipping or banning such questions will both add more information about you (these actions are recorded). Doing so also reduces how often these questions come up - so you won't be annoyed for long.

Ultimately, a wide variety of questions also explores what you find engaging. For the personality pump to work, it must both pump a lot of effective data AND pump often. Finding the right questions with Ankh can't happen if there are very few, exclusively serious questions. No one is that stern and rigid, we hope.

That's a great idea. We might add that feature as an opt-in.

Please keep in mind, the current level of data privacy (not accessing your data) wouldn't be possible if we add an LLM, unless it's on-device. And on-device chatbots are awful these days.

Also, it's quite the task to get LLMs to be consistently creative, intuitive, and non-repetitive. Hand-crafted questions with a selection algorithm have their advantages. If you want a chatbot experience, you can also get it elsewhere and save that data, perhaps adding it to Ankh.

Not at all. Missing photos, notes, or old memories don't matter much if you keep adding new data. Your overall personality and the way you think come through as you go.

See: FAQ: Who are you to say these questions are “enough”?

If you've forgotten something, that's part of who you are, too. It affects your behavior in ways that can possibly be coaxed out from other interactions.

To state it differently: not every conceivable question under the sun must be answered (by everyone) to pin down everyone's personalities - there's some predictability to people as well.

Someone (or something) can "know" you and eventually correctly predict some preferences you've never stated. Such a caring observer may even predict things you didn't know about yourself: Will you like a particular pasta sauce? At least that's the hope with enough data (mmm... food data).

Yes, Ankh does not require an internet connection.

Yes, in the Settings menu press Export. This will create a file that you can save on your device or share (presumably to yourself, via email).

You may inspect this export data since it's in a standard JSON format with base64 encoding for files. That said, the base64 file requires some programming knowledge to extract.

Any shredcrypted data you create via the app will be included in the exported file but will be indecipherable, as the keys are destroyed. At least indecipherable for a long, long time.