It is also why we should be suspicious of technology companies that offer us easy, prefabricated, supposedly complete chatbots. We should instead seek technology that enables us to create and fine-tune our own chatbots – without requiring extensive technical expertise. There are no shortcuts to thoughtful representations.

But in the industrialised West, communities of support are collapsing. Our spiritual institutions, practices and beliefs have been denuded by centuries of disenchantment. This may suggest that technological modernity, with its commitment to scientific rationalism, is to blame for the Western world’s often-impoverished relationship to death.

There is no one way to design a chatbot ‘actor’ because there is no best or definitive perspective on a person, no best or definitive fictional world in which to encounter someone’s legacy. There are countless useful, informative, intriguing, funny, strange, beautiful perspectives that a chatbot ‘actor’ might stage, just as there are countless ways... See more

Many critics view this technological endeavour as an especially abject form of death denial. A common objection to these bots is that emotionally vulnerable users may become so invested in their interactions that they will conflate their chatbot with the deceased person, or lose sight of the fact that the person is gone. As the philosopher Patrick... See more

This is the wrong way to view chatbots of the dead. Instead, the potential of these technologies would be better understood if they were thought of more like artworks – or, rather, like theatrical performances. Engaging with a chatbot is a lot like attending a participatory theatre performance. In these performances, audience members play active... See more

The assumption that a chatbot delivers – or seeks to deliver – an authoritative replication of a deceased person makes as much sense as the assumption that an actor’s portrayal of a historical figure in a drama represents the sole faithful depiction of that figure.

‘Fredbot’ is one example of a technology known as chatbots of the dead , chatbots designed to speak in the voice of specific deceased people. Other examples are plentiful: in 2016, Eugenia Kuyda built a chatbot from the text messages of her friend Roman Mazurenko, who was killed in a traffic accident. The first Roman Bot, like Fredbot, was... See more

And these emotionally one-sided relationships create a risk of over-reliance, social isolation and exploitation. This risk is especially stark given that chatbots of the dead may be produced by companies with a financial incentive to manipulate users and maximise engagement. A chatbot of the dead that is highly monetised (unlock your chatbot’s... See more

To some, chatbots of the dead are useful tools that can help us grieve, remember, and reflect on those we’ve lost. To others, they are dehumanising technologies that conjure a dystopian world. They raise ethical questions about consent, ownership, memory and historical accuracy: who should be allowed to create, control or profit from these... See more