Technology that lets us speak to our dead relatives has arrived. Are we ready?

This technology may be frightening for some. One man created a virtual version of his mother and talked to her at her own funeral. Some people think that talking with digital versions of lost loved ones could prolong your grief. Some of my friends recoiled when I mentioned this article. It is believed that we mess with death at our peril.

I am aware of these issues. I was not comfortable talking to a virtual version of my parents. When that person is in your own family, it still feels weird to speak to an artificial version of them.

I am only human, and I have no reason to worry about losing the people I love. Should I try to use technology to hang onto them?

There is a deep desire to remember the people we love who have died. We want our loved ones to remember before it's too late. We put up their pictures on our walls after they left. On their birthday, we visit their graves. As if they were there, we talk to them. The conversation has always been one way.

The idea that technology might be able to change the situation has been explored in a lot of TV shows. A woman who lost her partner re-creates a digital version of him as a voice assistant and a robot. Even as she builds more expansive versions of him, she becomes frustrated by the gaps between her memories of her partner and the reality of the technology used to mimic him.

If technology might help me hang onto the people I love, is it so wrong to try?

Are you not? You are just a small part of us. You don't have any history to you. She consigns the robot to her attic because she doesn't want to think about it.

The technology has changed a lot in the past few years. Progress has been driven by rapid advances in artificial intelligence. Over the past 10 years, voice assistants have gone from novelty to a part of daily life for millions of people. Talking to our devices about everything from the weather forecast to the meaning of life has made us very comfortable. More powerful ways for humans to communicate with machines are expected to be unlocked by the use of large language models. Some have argued that they must be sentient.

It is possible to modify LLM software to sound more like a specific person by feeding it lots of things that person said. A journalist wrote a story for the San Francisco Chronicle about a thirtysomething man who uploaded old texts and Facebook messages from his deceased fiancée to create a simulation of her using software known as Project December.