Is AI Summoning Ghosts?
Well, the theme may seem like a mythical thing, but what if I say that you can resurrect your deceased loved ones as chatbots.
Imagine you come home after a long day, missing your lovely grandma who has recently passed away. You take your phone and text this virtual grandma saying “I miss you”. But hey then she replies back to you, in her own voice with her own words. She may ask “How was your day?”. This is not conjuring🤣. This is really happening right now.
What is the technology behind this ghost?
Companies are using large language models (the same AI technology powering ChatGPT) to create chatbots that mimic deceased individuals. They train these models on personal data: text messages, emails, social media posts, voice recordings, and even videos.
The result? A conversational AI that sounds, responds, and “thinks” like someone who no longer exists.
How it started? Who are the pioneers?
- Project December: Founded by Jason Rohrer, this service lets you create a custom AI chatbot based on a deceased person. You answer a few questions about their personality, and the AI simulates them. It costs as little as $10.
- HereAfter AI: Founded by James Vlahos, who created an interactive “Dadbot” of his dying father. The platform records conversations with a living person and transforms them into a voice-enabled avatar that family members can talk to forever.
- Eternime: A service that “creates a digital clone of you” that your loved ones can interact with after you’re gone. It learns from your digital footprint.
- Replika (the grief use case): While originally designed as a general AI companion, many users have repurposed Replika to simulate lost loved ones, feeding it memories and personality traits.
A real story about this. →
In 2020, a Chinese tech company created a digital replica of a grandmother who had passed away. The grandson, who was deeply grieving, could now hear her voice, see her animated face, and have conversations with “her.”
The video went viral on Chinese social media. Millions watched as the young man asked his AI grandmother about her health, received life advice, and even heard her sing a lullaby.
The comments were divided:
“This is beautiful. He can finally heal.”
“This is terrifying. He can never move on.”
This AI Lets You Talk to Your Dead Mom… Is It Ethical?
https://youtu.be/SqIdXOLWSfI?si=lIK6I6eNBEJA6LaQ
https://youtu.be/YLgUlYXIQxs?si=j9rzqcV19dCAGBY6
The Promises: Why People Want This
This may sound like a joke, but it can be very helpful to some people in several ways when it comes to emotions.
1. Healing unresolved grief.
Many people carry guilt or unfinished conversations with the deceased. An AI could provide a space to say goodbye, ask forgiveness, or hear comforting words.
2. Preserving family history.
Imagine future generations being able to “talk” to their great-great-grandparents. Oral history becomes interactive. Stories don’t die.
3. Comfort for children.
A child who loses a parent could still hear their voice say “I love you” whenever they need it.
4. Legacy and immortality.
Some argue that if a digital version of you can live forever, you never truly die — at least not in memory.
Why This Could Go Wrong
1. Complicated grief.
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Psychologists warn that interacting with an AI version of a deceased person could prevent the natural grieving process. Instead of accepting loss, people might become trapped in a simulation of the past.
Dr. Sherry Turkle, MIT professor and author of Reclaiming Conversation, puts it bluntly:
“We’re not prepared for the emotional consequences of being able to ‘talk’ to the dead. Grief requires acceptance. This technology asks for denial.”
2. Consent of the dead.
Did the deceased person agree to be digitally resurrected? Most didn’t. Is it ethical to create a chatbot of someone without their explicit permission?
3. Data privacy.
Who owns the digital clone? The company? The family? What happens if the company goes bankrupt or gets hacked? Your mother’s voice and personality could become someone else’s property — or worse, be manipulated.
4. Manipulation and scams.
Bad actors could create convincing chatbots of deceased public figures to spread misinformation. Imagine an AI “Martin Luther King Jr.” endorsing a political candidate he never met. Or scammers creating fake grieving chatbots to extract money from vulnerable people.
5. Moving on vs. staying stuck.
The hardest question: Does this help people heal, or does it keep them from letting go?
What’s Coming Next 🤔
The technology is improving rapidly.
- Voice cloning is already indistinguishable from real humans.
- Video synthesis (deepfakes) can now animate a deceased person’s face from a single photo.
- Memory models are learning to retain long-term context, making conversations feel more natural and personal.
Within five years, you may be able to video call a lifelike, interactive avatar of someone who died decades ago.
What do you think?
This technology can help. A widow hearing her late husband’s voice one more time. A child hearing a parent’s laughter. These are beautiful possibilities.
But it can also harm. And the harm might be invisible — inside someone’s mind, slowing their ability to heal.
Perhaps the question isn’t “Can we do this?”
Perhaps the question is “Just because we can, should we?”
Dewmi Karunarathne
2nd Year
Faculty of Computing
References
- Project December — projectdecember.net
- HereAfter AI — hereafter.ai
- Vlahos, James. “My Dad Died. Then I Created an AI Chatbot of Him.” MIT Technology Review, 2021. Link
- Turkle, Sherry. Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age. Penguin Press, 2015.
- Matsakis, Louise. “The Grief Tech Industry Is Growing. So Are the Ethical Concerns.” Wired, 2023. Link
- Zhong, Raymond. “How AI Is Bringing Loved Ones Back From the Dead.” The New York Times, 2023.
- Epstein, Ziv, et al. “The Emerging Ethics of AI Griefbots.” arXiv, 2024.
