Artificial intelligence-powered "grief tech" may be here to stay.
According to MIT Technology Review, the tech works by training an artificial intelligence on images, recordings, and footage of dead people to create a virtual form that they can interact with.
The purpose of these artificial intelligences is to allow surviving loved ones to learn to live with their loss.
"From what I could glean over a dozen conversations with my virtually deceased parents, this really will make it easier to keep close the people we love," wrote MIT's Charlotte Jee, who tested out a grief tech startup called HereAfterai for herself.
She said it was easy to see the appeal.
One of the hardest parts of the human experience is grieving. HereAfter, for example, asks users to provide hours of recordings in order to generate conversations from that data.
According to the company's website, "HereAfter is an app that lets you preserve meaningful memories about your life and share them with the people you love."
StoryFile allows quasi-holographic versions of dead people to attend their own funerals.
Over time, her parents sounded more like themselves, but first sounded distant and tinny.
She said that she learned a few new stories about her parents' younger lives, that she heard some tales about her own childhood, and that she received some life advice.
An argument could be made that creating and listening to an artificial intelligence-generated recording is a different experience than playing back old voicemails or watching old videos.
While a photo album is static, an Artificial Intelligence-generated voice that speaks from beyond adds a different aspect to the experience. It is invention rather than preservation.
It's up to the grieving to decide if they want an artificial intelligence to mimic their loved ones.
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