HereAfter AI

In 2016, James Vlahos confronted the terminal illness of his father, prompting him to record his father’s life story to preserve cherished memories. However, Vlahos sought a deeper connection and ultimately spent nearly a year developing an AI chatbot named Dadbot, designed to emulate his father's essence.

This experience led Vlahos to establish HereAfter AI, which transforms personal memories into interactive avatars that enable communication with the deceased. By uploading digital records like emails and messages, families can create digital versions of their loved ones.

HereAfter AI offers an app that simulates the personality of the deceased through a series of interactive exchanges. Users can engage with the avatar via smartphones or smart speakers, receiving responses filled with stories and anecdotes.

After investing time in setting up the app and recording answers, I found the AI's responses sometimes lacking authenticity, as it included phrases I would never use. You can read more about my experiences with the app here.

With the integration of advanced AI chatbots like ChatGPT, HereAfter AI is striving to enhance conversational capabilities, ensuring the AI accurately reflects the information provided.

StoryFile

Last year, StoryFile made headlines by enlisting actor William Shatner to promote its services. As a living legend, he provides a unique perspective on his own life, especially following his space journey.

StoryFile captures audio and video of individuals before they pass away, creating interactive avatars that can attend their own funerals or connect with future generations.

Founder Stephen Smith describes the service as a virtual representation of the deceased, programmed to deliver pre-recorded messages that resemble real-life responses. However, the technology has its limitations, as avatars can only discuss predetermined topics. Smith's team is working on further developments to allow for interactions with a 3D likeness of the deceased.

During question-and-answer sessions, an AI chatbot conducts interviews covering various topics. Smith, who has experience leading the USC Shoah Foundation, acknowledges that ChatGPT can perform the duties of a seasoned oral historian.

What distinguishes StoryFile from other startups is its approach to generating content. Smith prefers a natural method over creating original spoken content, which some may find unsettling. In contrast, other founders, like Justin Harrison, advocate for using AI to create new narratives through natural language processing.

The mental health impacts of grief technology are under examination. Smith recognizes that some individuals may find it challenging to interact with a digital version of a loved one immediately after loss. Nonetheless, he believes StoryFile is crucial for preserving legacies for future generations.

Re;memory

Developed by the Korean firm Deepbrain AI, Re;memory allows users to create personal avatars for their families after death for a fee of $10,000 and several hours in a studio. This initiative is inspired by the Korean tradition of Jesa, where family members honor the deceased through annual visits to their resting places. However, Re;memory does not replicate the individual's personality, as its training data is limited.

You, Only Virtual

You, Only Virtual takes a distinct approach by collaborating with clinical psychologists, offering mental health resources on its site to encourage responsible use of its technology.

This platform focuses on the relationship between the living and the deceased, aiming to recreate personal interactions. Founder Justin Harrison established this company to reshape how individuals cope with grief. The app analyzes text messages and calls to generate a chatbot that can deliver original responses, even mimicking the deceased's voice.

Despite concerns regarding privacy and using personal communications without consent, Harrison argues that the chatbot's user is the same individual to whom the messages were originally sent, justifying its use.

Seance AI

Seance AI is designed as a temporary emotional processing tool, operating on a pay-per-session model that avoids fostering long-term digital connections. Led by designer Jarred Rocks, the platform aims to offer closure rather than a permanent link to the deceased, facilitating brief exchanges to help users express themselves after sudden loss.

As AI technologies advance, the realism of griefbots is expected to improve, prompting questions about their role in facilitating mourning versus distorting reality and affecting mental health.

Navigating Grief in the Digital Era

In the digital age, coping with loss has become increasingly intricate as the digital remnants of loved ones linger on social media and elsewhere online. Some individuals find comfort in revisiting these archives, particularly through memorial sites on platforms like Facebook, but such profiles remain static.

While interacting with AI avatars of deceased loved ones may provide solace, it also raises ethical and psychological concerns. The preservation of memories and heirlooms has always been crucial, inspiring tech companies to explore innovative methods to support this process.

The use of avatar chatbots extends beyond grief; they can also serve as tools for documenting thoughts, facilitating difficult conversations, and preserving memories in real-time. Such avatars may hold value even during life, enabling individuals to share their experiences with future generations.

Although avatar chatbots can aid in the grieving process, they also present potential risks to mental health and emotional well-being. Research suggests that overreliance on these technologies may hinder adaptation to loss and prolong the grieving period.

Death tech designers face ongoing challenges in accurately replicating the deceased while navigating privacy and consent issues. Generative AI models like ChatGPT produce text based on statistical likelihood, often generating misleading or harmful content.

Gary Marcus, a professor at New York University, cautions that these systems may struggle to authentically replicate a loved one, frequently fabricating information. Nonetheless, advancements in audio and video technology have made it possible to create digital replicas of the deceased, making tools like deepfakes more accessible.

Marcus emphasizes the importance of understanding the limitations of these technologies, as they can convincingly imitate human behavior, raising concerns about the authenticity of AI-generated interactions.

How do we validate the words spoken by an AI representation? In grief tech, authenticity hinges on faithfully capturing the deceased's appearance and voice, which relies heavily on the amount of data fed into the chatbot. Even with extensive training data, inaccuracies can still occur, particularly when responding to nuanced questions that require the essence and perspective of the deceased.

While challenges remain, advancements in AI technology are bringing us closer to lifelike virtual interactions with those who have passed away. However, as these technologies evolve, the ethical considerations around privacy and consent must remain a priority.

Echoes of Early Photography

The recent rise of AI grief technology mirrors the early fascination with photography in the 19th century. Photography captivated the Victorian era, and despite its initial imperfections, it rapidly progressed from capturing elite portraits to memorializing families in life and death.

This period is exciting, even for someone like me, who has navigated the realms of analog, digital, and now AI photography. Photography did not replace painting; rather, it inspired artists to develop new interpretations of reality. The reasons for capturing images of loved ones have endured over the past century and a half, even as technology has evolved.

AI is utilized to enhance photographs, but this is not the AI we are discussing here. A year ago, I explored the similarities between the photography and AI revolutions, reflecting on the historical impulse to document our likeness and preserve memories. Photographs, films, and videos encapsulate moments in time, while AI has the potential to profoundly alter our perceptions of memory, time, death, and identity.

Those of us who have experienced loss know the powerful connection we maintain with the memories and objects left behind. Many of us converse with the photographs of our departed loved ones or gesture affection towards their images, as I often do.

Technological advancements have transformed our grieving processes, from early photography that brought images into our homes to contemporary platforms like Facebook Memorial pages that foster remembrance. Integrating AI into mourning seems a natural progression, offering comfort and closure, especially for those who missed the opportunity to say goodbye.

As we move into an AI-driven future, the stories, memories, and voices of the past will continue to echo within our digital frameworks. Regardless of the technology employed, the essence of human connection and the importance of authentic memories will remain pivotal to our existence.

Ginger Liu is the founder of Ginger Media & Entertainment in Hollywood and a Ph.D. researcher specializing in AI and visual arts media, with a focus on grief technology, digital afterlife, death practices, and photography. She is an entrepreneur, author, writer, artist, and filmmaker. Listen to her podcast on The Digital Afterlife of Grief.