Ghost in the machine: Can an AI version of the dead help us mourn?

A new way to cope with grief: Get AI to turn a dead person into an avatar. Can our digital footprint really comfort the ones we left behind?

In the quiet solitude of a late evening, a mother sits at her computer, typing messages to her dead daughter. But here’s a twist: The dead daughter is texting back too. It’s not magic. The mother is using an AI-powered chatbot that has scanned through the daughter’s archives of texts, comments and audio clips, and has learnt to respond just like her – down to the speech patterns and catchphrases. Is she real? No. But she’s a dead ringer, just similar enough to help Mum grieve.

In the TV show Upload (2020-), people choose to have their consciousness transferred to a virtual world after their death.

In the Black Mirror episode Be Right Back (2013), a woman has an AI replica made of her dead boyfriend.

Eternal You (2024) is an award-winning documentary about start-ups that use AI to create digital versions of the deceased.

Pantheon (2022-2023) takes a dystopian view of the concept of “uploaded intelligence”.