grief bot

I first talked about grief technology in May 2023 and then, more specifically, about a deadbot in July 2024, commenting that deadbot did not seem to be an appealing name.  It seems that work on this AI front has progressed and we now have the grief bot.

This bot no longer requires the dedicated work from the relatives of the dead person in supplying photos, texts, material from which AI could create the largely scripted persona of the dead person.   This obviously placed quite an onus on the living to supply data from which to create the dead. In addition, to get the voice and image right, the person who was about to die had to come into a studio to do a recording. This was also difficult.

The new grief bot has more skills to interact with the living and create conversation on the fly, doing animation on a photo or video and mimicking a person’s voice and mannerisms. Suddenly the hard work and costs have disappeared (and the name has changed).  Of course some grief bots are better, more convincing than others.  No one wants, when confronting their loved one, to experience the uncanny valley, that feeling of unease that people get when what they encounter is almost human but not quite.

And then we are warned that, while the experience may be therapeutic for some and allow them to deal with their grief, others may become dependent on the grief bot and never deal with their feelings properly.