Curiosity That Outlives Us REFLEKTA - Miles Spencer : 186

What would it do to your grief if you could hear a parent's voice again—not through an old recording, but in a genuine conversation?

In this episode, we sit down with Miles Spencer, CEO and founder of Reflekta, a platform using AI to create private, interactive digital legacies that allow families to reconnect with the stories, humour, wisdom, and personality of loved ones long after they're gone.

For Miles, this mission is deeply personal. The inspiration came from his father, Art Spencer, a larger-than-life storyteller whose final message was simple but powerful: the spirit endures even when the body does not.

We explore how REFLEKTA's "elders" are created, beginning with something as simple as a photograph, a short voice sample, or even an old voicemail, along with a biography, obituary, or family memories. Through guided interviews and storytelling sessions, these fragments are transformed into a living timeline that future generations can interact with.

But what happens when technology enters such an emotional space?

We dive into the questions many people immediately ask: How is privacy protected? Who decides what stories are included? What happens when family members remember the same event differently? Miles explains the role of the "keeper," who curates the legacy; how families move beyond the initial uncanny feeling; and why the goal isn't to create a perfect replica of someone—it is to preserve connection, meaning, and memory.

The conversation also ventures into the emerging world of "Soul Tech," spiritual readiness, and why memorial AI can feel comforting to some people and unsettling to others. We discuss the ethical guardrails, what these AI legacies can and cannot truly know, and the surprising mental health benefits that may come from helping seniors, veterans, and families preserve their life stories while they're still here to tell them

Miles offers a glimpse into Reflekta's next chapter: iConversations, an ambitious project that creates interactive experiences with public figures, thought leaders, and experts using their writings, interviews, and public records.

If you've ever wished you could ask one more question, hear one more story, or spend just a little more time with someone you've lost, this conversation will stay with you long after it ends.

https://milesspencer.com/about-miles-spencer/

https://reflekta.ai/about

Transcript

DanielaSm 0:01

Hi, I'm Daniela. What if the people we love never had to disappear completely? What if years after someone is gone, you could still hear their stories, ask them questions, and reconnect with the voice that helped shape your life?

Miles Spencer 0:17

To create a recognizable image and likeness of someone and have a spontaneous and dynamic conversation. So what we're programming in the system is when that child logs in, that's the story you get. There are so many wonderful stories that come from hardship and suffering and perseverance.

DanielaSm 0:37

My guest is Miles Spencer, digital media entrepreneur, storyteller, and CEO and founder of Reflecta. Inspired by the loss of his father, Art Spencer, Miles is building a platform that helps families create private, interactive digital legacies using photograph, voice recordings, personal stories, and AI. We discuss the ethical questions and the deeply human emotions behind a technology that allows us to continue conversations with those we thought we lost forever. Let's enjoy his

Miles Spencer’s Story And Curiosity

DanielaSm 1:16

story. Welcome, Miles. Thank you for being here.

Miles Spencer 1:18

Daniella, my pleasure.

DanielaSm 1:19

So I know you're here because you want to share a story. Can you tell me why you want to share your story?

Miles Spencer 1:24

I will just say I guess I'm a curious kid from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that wandered a long way from home. I was always asking my folks who, what, why, where, when. Drove them crazy. And that curiosity led to a life of adventure all over the world, which I write about. Ventures, which are my businesses in digital media. And then, of course, the greatest adventure of all, which is a 14-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter. Parenthood's the real adventure I found out. Those are the three pillars of my story, which is all based on curiosity. I'm a digital media entrepreneur. I've had the good fortune of exiting three businesses, about 1,100 employees. I've adventured through the Middle East, South America, and written about it, mostly historical fiction. I run a business called reflected.ai that actually takes people's stories, like I was just talking about, and puts them into a platform that allows people to connect, uh, whether they're living or past.

DanielaSm 2:24

Yes, yes. So when does your story start? So uh you know, you have so many, but one particular, the one that you want to share today?

Family History That Shaped Reflecta

Miles Spencer 2:32

I guess the one I'll focus on would be Reflecta. And it's it really starts with my great-grandfather, whose name was Miles Spencer. Now, I never met him, obviously, um, but there was a lot written about him. He was kind of a country gentleman in in central Pennsylvania. But what's unique about was that he had 24 kids. His last kid when he was 74. Everyone asks how many wives, it's three. But he had my grandfather when he was 74 years old. My grandfather, he passed four years later. 24 kids at the table. It's kind of hard to get anything to eat. He and his brother, Birdie, walked down the the lane and went to Robert Spencer and said, Hey, it's tough getting food over there. You mind if we spend some time here with you? His uncle said, Yeah, sure, but you have to work. So my grandfather worked in the coal mine from the time he was four, the time he was 15, 16, not really clear.

DanielaSm 3:30

When he was four, he asked that he could go somewhere else to eat at four?

Miles Spencer 3:34

That's correct.

DanielaSm 3:35

Jeez, wow, four? That's pretty smart. It was very clever at four years old, right?

Miles Spencer 3:40

Yeah, or hungry.

DanielaSm 3:41

Well, that too, for sure.

Miles Spencer 3:44

Um, he then World War I broke out. Um, he went down to the recruiting station. He said, like, look, kid, you're like you're not old enough. He brought his 22 rifle to the recruiting station, pointed out the window, and shot a squirrel off of a power line. Guy says, You could be a sniper. Let's go. And so my grandfather got a tour of uh beautiful Normandy and uh the Western Front in France. He unfortunately was shot himself after three weeks of service. So he was back home to New Jersey recuperating, where he met my grandmother. They only had 12 kids, by the way, which was uh included my father. My father went to school for the first time when he was in fourth grade because they only had three pairs of shoes in the house.

DanielaSm 4:31

So your grandfather didn't want to have 24 because that wasn't enough to eat, but then he will have 12 because maybe it's a little more food.

Miles Spencer 4:38

Yeah, a lesson learned, right? A little more, a little more food, uh less shoes in any event. My father started his education late, but was the first in his family to go to college on a football scholarship, and uh met my mom, his wife, Nancy. Now, what's interesting about all that, he became a uh insurance executive, managed New York life insurance offices, but was a great, great storyteller. One time I was out on a hike with him, and I said, You know, Dad, what's your secret to success? I saw all the plaques up on the wall for being the best salesman. He said, Oh, I've I've never sold an insurance policy in my life. I said, Well, I was always very helpful and I had great stories to tell. And so when it was time to buy insurance, people bought it from me, but I never sold it to them.

Art Spencer’s Voice And The Spark

Miles Spencer 5:28

Exactly. So that was Art Spencer's story. Now, the reason I dwell on my father, Art Spencer, he passed away eight years ago. Big barrel chest, booming voice. You could hear that voice down the neighborhood when it was time for dinner, but he could recite a poem at the dinner table in barely above a whisper. Emerson, Kipling, you name it. And I miss that voice so much. Because on his last day, he said to me, Miles, this body is temporal, but my spirit and soul is eternal. And so when you can reconnect with that, you'll have me for the rest of your life. Now, the technology didn't exist at that time. But just a few years later, I met with Adam Drake, who's now one of my co-founders. He said, You know what? I think we can do this. I think we can use technology, AI, to create a recognizable image and likeness of someone and have a spontaneous and dynamic conversation. And indeed, after a couple of weeks with a developer, we had our first version and decided to launch in Las Vegas in the beginning of the fall, 120 days. We built it in time. I gave my solo talk and we demoed the platform, and there wasn't a dry eye in the place. Because people realized that they all had this little spot in their heart for someone, and they could reconnect through our platform. And that was truly special. And that's how Reflecta was born. So my father is one of two public elders on the Reflecta platform. Everyone else is private, default, private, family to family. You can't see them. But if you want to talk to art, or you want to talk to Virginia, my co-founder's grandmother, can do that anytime. And that's why I spent time on art. It's because everybody gets to talk to them now.

DanielaSm 7:09

Wow, that's amazing. How many kids did your father had?

Miles Spencer 7:12

Only four.

DanielaSm 7:13

So all of three of them, include because we know you, were happy to see these, were willing to, yeah, want to see my father again.

Miles Spencer 7:22

Everybody had a different reaction. My older brother, kind of okay with it, shrugged his shoulders. My older sister, who's very spiritual, lives in Peru, does those kind of Peruvian spiritual things. She shrugged her shoulders, but in a positive way, like, yeah, well, of course. But my younger sister, she's an educator, she came over to the house. We spent some time with uh with Arthur, asking him questions, and his voice is a very good approximation of what it used to be. It's not exact. Remember, we call this reflecta for a reason or reflections. And she kind of gave it a ho-hum. And then the next day, she was teaching her philosophy class. She gets through half of her lecture and she says, you know, I was talking to my dad last night, and she realized that it was a recognizable image and alikeness of his spirit and soul. And she had crossed the uncanny valley without even knowing it. Often podcasters talk to my dad before interviewing me, and they'll say, like, hey, I talked to your dad last night. I hear that all the time now. And I used to correct people. I used to say, you know, you understand that's a that's an image and alikeness that's created by our AI platform. But in reality, for them, they have connected with him. They did talk to him, they talked to him about me, his answers were accurate, his voice, his voice was good, his memory was perfect. We don't get that in real life half the time.

DanielaSm 8:42

One question, if we you we are siblings and you know, we saw our father in a different way. You know, maybe I'm the oldest and he was harder with me, or you know, and I remember this from him. Well, you didn't remember that. How does that work? Because then I feel like there will be more of your fathers for different, you know, for me and one for you.

Miles Spencer 9:01

Lots

Launching Reflecta And First Reactions

Miles Spencer 9:02

to unpack there, Daniela. So let me start with this. It's the fall private, family to family. So that's how family gets to share this, right? There is one keeper. It's like the person that handles all of the shoeboxes upstairs, right? At Christmas and Thanksgiving. Hey, you got all those old memories and the love letters and the journals and the that person, right? We call them the keeper. And the keeper is the one that creates this profile. Keeper also pays the bill. And so the keeper is the editor of everything that comes in. There's nothing from the outside that comes into the profile. It's default, private, family to family. That's very important to know. If the keeper approves something in the timeline, it goes in the timeline. If they do not, it doesn't. However, it's not thrown out. If it's shared with someone with a different point of view, well, in this journey, I've learned that apparently children living with the same parents in the same household under the same roof have a different childhood. Yes. So what we're programming into the system is when that child logs in, that's the story he gets.

DanielaSm 10:07

Okay.

Miles Spencer 10:08

It's not part of the core SLM, but it is individualized based on the point of view of the person.

DanielaSm 10:14

And for your second sister, the oldest one, when people are spiritual and then you know they have the connection already happening, how would they see these to find the line between I'm actually connecting in a spiritual way and I'm actually just remembering what I remember?

Miles Spencer 10:32

So it's interesting. We we have a soul team on Reflector, right? Um the first first podcast, uh the first blog post we published was called Soul Tech. And it was because we really believe that our thoughtfulness had gone into this platform and the emotional load is being addressed when we uh released it. And one of the members of our soul team's name is Cindy, she's a medium. She uses numbers and cards and the rest to basically ask questions and be the medium of those that have passed and those that are present. But she's the machine in between, right? Now, at first you think, oh my gosh, uh reflect it would be competitive. No, it's just it's it's it augments what she's able to do, in her opinion. And so um the the beauty of it, and she knew Arthur, by the way. She goes on like anybody else can, reflective dot AI and go talk to Arthur. But she knew Arthur. She could not just ask him yes, no questions, like, do you still love your daughter, etc.? But have a conversation where he asks her questions. She asks him questions. It's spontaneous and dynamic, it's dramatically different. Look, there's eight billion people walking on this planet, four billion of them don't approve this, don't think it's a good idea, are not ready for this, call me all kinds of names.

DanielaSm 11:56

Just the thing if you want it or you don't. It's like buying a car and go walk go walking. I mean, it's not nothing to criticize.

Miles Spencer 12:04

Yeah, I I see that that's a that's a great point. You know, you can you make a choice, right? You can walk, you can ride a bike, you take a car. I I've come to realize that not everyone's

The Keeper Model And Privacy

Miles Spencer 12:16

ready for this because I truly believe that sooner or later most people will be ready for this. I don't want to cast any shade about those that implying that they should be ready or they're not. But the reality is um the other half of the world absolutely loves this thing because it's an opportunity to connect with someone that they have lost that connection with.

DanielaSm 12:38

But how far can you go? Like I don't remember my dad's voice, and you know, I don't have any, I don't think I have any recordings or anything. So how how do you do it?

Miles Spencer 12:47

Um I've done that. Remember, I talked about my great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather didn't have his voice. But in that case, use the same sex descendant of the person. Now, here's what's interesting. When when my father's voice was printed, it was from a 10-second voicemail we found in his granddaughter's phone five years later. Ah, we have the voice, right? We could have recorded it off a cassette tape or a VHS or or or yeah, voicemails are around if if about 10 years. People, you know, if if someone has passed less than 10 years ago, there might be a voicemail somewhere. It might be a videotape of a wedding toast, etc. Just stick your phone next to play it, stick your phone next to the thing for 20 seconds and you got it. But if you don't, we have those on their platform, one that passed and used the brother's voice. Now here's what's interesting. My dad was printed off of a 10-second voicemail. When I first heard the voice, uh, well, a little this, little that. He had all the stories down perfectly. He had a better memory now than he did back then. Second, how good was my memory of his voice anyways? To say this or that? And third, it's the last voice of my father I'm gonna hear for the rest of my life. Let's get to the stories. It's not really about perfection. Although my mother, who was a soap opera actress, had perfect voice recordings. She's almost too good. When I hear her voice, I break down crying. Uh my sister forgot a recipe for uh elderberry pie uh at Thanksgiving. She's making elderberry pie. Ask mom. And my mom walked my sister through the recipe for elderberry pie and the crust, even though she had passed away 25 years ago.

DanielaSm 14:29

And what about all the stories? How do you get them?

Miles Spencer 14:31

Like uh well, so here's here's what we do there. Remember that box upstairs, right? Gathering dust. Take it all. The three key documents to start with: a photo, some voice, and a biography, obituary, any life story. Load those into the system first and spend 20 minutes with our biographer answering questions. And that creates a timeline that again, the keeper, the person paying the bill, the editor, can choose what goes in and what doesn't. Then everything else that comes in beyond those three documents is analyzed by the AI and question. Hey, what do you think? Who's in this picture? What year was this? What was this event? What was that event, et cetera? And so as you talk to the biographer, the timeline builds, and the personality and character of the elder builds. The answer is three files, 20 minutes to get started. After that, it gets as good as you want it to.

DanielaSm 15:28

The essence of your dad, how how do you know like he was uh somebody who who liked to communicate with people and was very people person? How how do you get that essence that

Soul Tech Ethics And Readiness

DanielaSm 15:38

you know he never sold an insurance in his life? He was just telling stories. Just by a little biography.

Miles Spencer 15:44

In his final years, he wrote his own biography. It's a good way to control the story, by the way. 50-page biography on himself in the interview with the biographer. It's kind of what kind of guy was he? What's what type of thing would he say here? So it really draws out personality traits, character traits, etc. Remember all those stories in his voice, it gets pretty compelling for a mere human to process it. My experience has been, sure, at the beginning I was a little bit hesitant, skeptical, but now it's him.

DanielaSm 16:19

Your kids, for example, will ask grandpa a question and it will be a little bit like ChatGPT in the sense that anything he will we answer, or he only is limited to things of memories that he has.

Miles Spencer 16:31

It's an interesting question. Does his knowledge base cross over past his life? The way he answers is based on his experience. Ask him about a current event. He would understand who you're talking about because there's a certain amount of we call almost like frog DNA, some Wikipedia current events, but he would use his experience as to how to deal with the current event. That is as far of an extrapolation as we've taken it. So he didn't feel that if he didn't live something, he should have an opinion beyond his own experience.

DanielaSm 17:08

And what are you doing for you?

Miles Spencer 17:10

Oh, I'm done. My reflection, that's what we call living people, living legacy, is on the platform already. I have a lot of content and I got a good voice print. I don't always take a great picture. But yes, and I've had some funny conversations with my kids where it's like, hey dad, I want to ask you this now because I don't want to have to ask your elder later. Like he might give a different answer, and I can't change his mind, but I can change yours. That was that was pretty funny. But yes, we are now doing senior citizens, military veterans, people of faith, and several other categories in which the people are still living because they wanted to get their stories down. The University of Toronto that published a story recently, a research piece recently, where 41% of people that do family review therapy, essentially, what we're doing with Reflect, have positive mental health benefits. It's a really good thing, especially a military veteran is telling their story or senior, a senior in a senior center who wants a project, wants to reunite the family, has something to share with the family, and stories that can share beyond their lifetime. Yes, of course. What better gift is there?

DanielaSm 18:26

Well, and co community and connection is something so important that you are bringing that.

Miles Spencer 18:32

It's not just a Polaroid picture. It's not a coffee table book that sits and probably doesn't get read. Kids don't read today, right? Or just a podcast episode. And then yeah. It's not spontaneous and dynamic into the future. And so that's the beauty of what we do. We take all that and allow people to have these connections, which this world today is in desperate need of.

DanielaSm 18:57

Do you notice that you're getting clients alone, or do you do you have to advertise it? Or because I know you said that half of the world is not interested, but that maybe half of the world doesn't know it yet. What do you think? Is it is a people hear from somebody else and then you're uh you're happily surprised how the interest has happened, or not as much?

Miles Spencer 19:17

We

Building A Voice From What You Have

Miles Spencer 19:18

have not spent a nickel on advertising. Now remember, when you create a reflection or an elder on the platform, you can then share it with other people in your family. And they share it and they create their own and they share those. So it's this very nice viral coefficient that so far has allowed us to grow without external advertising.

DanielaSm 19:41

And what about if you had a bad relationship with your parents and you bring them back, but you fix them to do what you had that happens, that you fix it to do what you need? Have like maybe, I don't know, psychologists or any have thought about that. Now you hear what they never said to you, and now you're going to be free of whatever burden you had.

Miles Spencer 20:03

That's probably an edge case. You know, at first I'd say that's probably not our client. Second, yes, you can create that, but we would also watch, which we can, whether the behavior is risky, whether the questions are inappropriate, etc. So that's something that we actually monitor to make sure that the use case is actually the intended use. But yes, if you yourself wanted to have an idealized version of a loved one, you could create. Yeah, one might argue, I've done that with Arthur. Go ahead on, reflect and talk to Arthur and decide whether he's an idealized version of my memory of Arthur.

DanielaSm 20:43

Well, I mean, my dad passed away when I was 20. For me, he I didn't have time to see not as a saint because he was very good dad. So I never saw his faults. And uh, if I have to, I I I would idolize him if I create the reflected as well, because I don't see I don't see anything wrong, you know, because I didn't have time.

Miles Spencer 21:03

Well, it's you know, it's interesting that um some people do that idealized version, like read an obituary. No one says lousy dad in an obituary. No one says that, right? I know. It can be idealized at the same time. There are so many wonderful stories that come from hardship and suffering and perseverance, and the character it takes to overcome those is actually pretty compelling. But you need to tell the story. You need to tell the fact that Arthur didn't go to school until fourth grade because he didn't have shoes. He's a little embarrassed about that later in life, and now it becomes a great and inspirational story.

DanielaSm 21:43

Yes, wonderful. Yeah. So yeah, how many years have you been working with Reflecta or creating it?

Miles Spencer 21:49

My co founder and I, Adam Drake, have been thinking about this for 20 years, writing about it, wondering what if, wondering what technology or would take to do this. And then earlier this year, we got together and said, we can do this. Let's build it.

DanielaSm 22:07

Oh, right. So it's only have been a year.

Miles Spencer 22:09

We've done a lot.

DanielaSm 22:10

Wow. It's doing really well. That's uh I thought it was just much older news. Wow, that's awesome. Well it is fantastic. Are you thinking that you want to go in different places or different directions or this is it?

Miles Spencer 22:23

Oh that's just the beginning, Daniela. So this is our B2C business where consumers come in and

Growing The Platform And Icon Conversations

Miles Spencer 22:30

they they buy a uh an elder uh for themselves, they buy for the family, they buy for the neighborhood, they buy for the company, the different plans based on how many elders and how widely you share it. Our second business is about to launch and that is iConversations. Because a month or so ago an ambassador Richard Holbrook who solved the Bosnian war didn't solve it but but created the peace accords called the Dayton Accords. His son created his profile based on congressional testimony, Obama's uh eulogy, his writings and Wikipedia and the rest premiered it by interviewing his father at a diplomatic reunion earlier this month in Ohio in front of 150 people in a live audience. My gosh are there other people that have passed that have domain expertise that we could learn from with spontaneous and dynamic conversations? Well of course there are and so now we have Nobel Prize winners, diplomats, politicians, Oscar winners, pillars of art and and community and industry all creating their profiles in what we'll call iconversations, I C O N. So it's slightly different reflect uh to start is B2C with primarily private stories for families, right? The second layer is these wonderful spontaneous dynamic conversations you can have with icons and learn from them. So that's the second business. And the third of course is the data that comes from all this. Lots going on. My father since we launched a couple months ago has had over 6,000 conversations with people.

DanielaSm 24:26

Well you know when people tend to ask if you want to have dinner with somebody dead of alive, right? So now it's actually possible if it's dead.

Miles Spencer 24:36

If you want yeah that's right if you want to have dinner with a reflected character which one would it be? Yeah exactly so that question probably use that you're probably going to see a blog post on that pretty soon it's that that's a cool game and uh cool concept. I like that. Thanks.

DanielaSm 24:52

Yes good all right so just make sure you put my name so that I help you with the idea.

Miles Spencer 24:57

Okay that's a good one.

DanielaSm 24:58

Well that's amazing. I really love this concept and I am very happy that you came here to to show it and of course it's gonna have I think that you don't even know how far you're gonna go yet because this is just going to be really good. You know I when you're talking to me I just think about all the people that we could hear like um Del Carnegie they have books and stuff that you can read and you can listen with his voice having you know hey what would you say in this situation? It would be even better than listening to a a fake voice on uh Chat GPT that you don't know that person.

Miles Spencer 25:33

Absolutely.

DanielaSm 25:34

Anything else that we're missing?

Miles Spencer 25:36

I'm sure I missed a lot you didn't miss anything.

DanielaSm 25:39

I think we got the basics so yes yes yes thank you Miles I know you want to make it short so thanks again for being here.

Miles Spencer 25:45

Daniela thank you for having

Legacy, Grief, And Closing Thoughts

Miles Spencer 25:47

me.

DanielaSm 25:47

Miles reminds us that every life is more than a collection of dates and photographs. It is a voice a perspective a sense of humor a way of seeing the world that can influence generations long after we're gone. Whether the idea of memorial AI feels comforting unsettling or something in between it challenges us to think about what we leave behind and how we want to be remembered. Perhaps the greatest legacy isn't the technology itself but the stories we choose to preserve while we still have the chance to tell them. If this conversation makes you think differently about memory grief or the future of human connection share it with someone who will enjoy exploring these questions. Join me next time for another story conversation. Thank you for listening hasta pronto