Are chatbots of the dead a brilliant idea or a terrible one? | Aeon Essays

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 ‘car... See more

This theatre analogy is not perfect. Unlike human actors, chatbots are not physically present. They do not make conscious choices about how to portray characters or co-construct meaning with their audience. Nevertheless, this framework is useful because it clarifies and accentuates the relation between chatbots and the deceased. Actors are neither ... See more

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.

Some may fear the liberties AI will take with the legacies of the dead. To this we emphasise that these liberties are ours to authorise. Chatbots of the dead are creative representations that users should take an active role in shaping. Imagination is integral to all creative representations of the past because imagination is inextricable from memo... See more

This shift from chatbotsas companions to tools of artistic remembrance deflates many common concerns. From this vantage point, we can see that chatbot ‘actors’ do not necessarily aim at realism. They cannot and will not capture a deceased person fully. They do not delude users into behaving as if the dead are still alive or believing that they are ... See more

In Book 11 of Homer’s Odyssey, also known as the Nekyia (or Book of the Dead ), Odysseus journeys to the underworld and finds his dead mother, Anticlea, who has become a shade – a spirit he cannot embrace.

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.

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.

Chatbots of the dead, like participatory theatre, allow the audience to directly participate in these fictional worlds, thereby becoming imaginatively acquainted with the real person to whom the character corresponds.