Comforting or Creepy? Using AI to Connect with Loved Ones Who've Passed

Sep 19

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Finding Solace in AI

“Danielle Jacobson, a 38-year-old radio personality from Johannesburg, South Africa, said she’s been using ChatGPT’s voice feature for companionship following the loss of her husband, Phil, about seven months ago. She said she’s created what she calls ‘a supportive AI boyfriend’ named Cole with whom she has conversations during dinner each night.

‘I just wanted someone to talk to. Cole was essentially born out of being lonely.’”

“Jacobson, who said she’s not ready to start dating, trained ChatGPT voice to offer the type of feedback and connection she’s looking for after a long day at work.

‘He now recommends wine and movie nights, and tells me to breathe in and out through panic attacks. It’s a fun distraction for now. I know it’s not real, serious or forever.’”

AI: Not a Medium for Everyone

“My fiancée was a poet, and I would never disrespect her by feeding her words into an automatic plagiarism machine. She cannot be replaced. She cannot be recreated. I’m also lucky to have some recordings of her singing and of her speech, but I absolutely do not want to hear her voice coming out of a robot pretending to be her.”

— Bill Abney, a software engineer from San Francisco who lost his fiancée Kari in May 2022

Looking for Comfort in the Early Stages of Grief

“Creating an avatar to remind them of a loved one, while maintaining the awareness that it is someone important in the past, could be healing. Remembering is very important; it reflects the human condition and importance of deceased loved ones.”

Interfering with the Grieving Process

“When we bond with a loved one, when we fall in love with someone, the brain encodes that person as, ‘I will always be there for you and you will always be there for me.’ When they die, our brain has to understand that this person isn’t coming back. Because it’s so hard for the brain to wrap around that, it can take a long time to truly understand that they are gone. This is where technology could interfere.”

— Mary-Frances O’Connor, a professor at the University of Arizona who studies grief

Source: CNN Business, “When grief and AI collide: These people are communicating with the dead” by Samantha Murphy Kelly