Would you like to chat with the dead? AI grief bots are changing the future of grief

If you could talk to the dead, would you? What if those dead were simulations generated by artificial intelligence (AI) systems and the digital ashes of the deceased? As the digital afterlife industry evolves and expands, more questions arise.

It sounds haunting and a little strange, but the future is already here. Have you seen the Black Mirror episode “Be Right Back” where Martha texts her deceased boyfriend’s AI chatbot and their interactions become much more lifelike? The idea of ​​using AI to digitally resurrect a deceased loved one definitely sounds like a plot from an episode of Black Mirror. These “mourning bots”, “death bots” or “death bots” have slowly but surely become a reality, and several companies now offer this service.

I’m currently researching how generative AI could impact the grieving process. Today, people use AI chatbots to interact with synthetic versions of deceased loved ones.

Many companies are developing AI chatbots based on the digital footprints of the dead that we can interact with. These grief bots create a simulation of a deceased loved one. The bots are based on artificial intelligence that uses large language models (LLMs) and mimic the speech of the deceased person by using their emails, text messages, voice recordings, and more. The technology is designed to help bereaved people cope with grief by allowing them to chat with the bot as if they were talking to the person. But does it really help?

For more than a century, people have used technology to cope with feelings of loss. For example, 19th-century Victorians were able to remember their dead with postmortem photographs when they couldn’t afford a painted portrait. Recent studies have shown that having a drawing or picture as a keepsake helps some bereaved people grieve. In recent years, people continue to listen to old voicemails and watch videos of deceased loved ones, which has become a ritual to maintain a connection with the deceased.

Some health and technology experts are warning against grief bots. They believe these bots can trap grieving people in online conversations, making it difficult for them to move on with their lives. Some argue that chatbots allow people to form strong emotional bonds with virtual people, making them dependent on chatbots for emotional support.

Given the uncertainty about what impact such chatbots will have on the grieving process, social scientists need to explore all possible responses to this new technology.

So why is it considered healthy to look at pictures or videos of a loved one, but it is frowned upon to chat with a grief bot? The answer, in my opinion, is pretty clear: reality. Let’s compare past technologies with the potential of grief bots.

Old photos and videos are authentic representations of a specific moment. They are real and leave digital footprints. Griefbots, on the other hand, create a synthetic version of the deceased based on their digital footprint.

Pictures and videos offer a glimpse into a specific moment in the past, like the summer you spent together at the beach. Grief bots use data from the past to generate new content, which may make these results more lifelike, but they aren’t real and never will be.

Another criticism of grief bots is that they prevent closure. Talking to the deceased can lead to prolonged grief and blur the line between connection and closure. Dr. Pauline Boss, professor emerita in the Department of Family Social Sciences at the University of Minnesota, coined the term “ambiguous loss” in the 1970s. She explained that people we love can be physically gone but psychologically present, or the opposite. Ambiguity complicates our ability to find closure and move on in life.

While the dead bot initially serves as a therapeutic aid, ethicists at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence in Cambridge examined hypothetical scenarios likely to arise in the fast-growing digital afterlife industry. The authors warn that the bots could be used to promote afterlife products and that they could distress children by claiming a deceased parent is still “with you”. Finally, the deceased could be used to spam bereaved family and friends with reminders and updates about the services they provide – a scenario they describe as “haunted by the dead”.

There is little evidence or research on grief bots to date and it is uncertain how they will affect the way we deal with loss. Usage data is not publicly available and not many mourners are currently using the technology. Very little is known about the potential short- and long-term consequences of using digital simulations for the deceased.

But regardless of what comfort a grief bot can or cannot provide to a grieving person, one should always remember that a chatbot is merely an AI predicting the next word and is not the loved one.