In the 1990 fantasy drama — Truly, Madly, Deeply, lead character Nina, (Juliet Stevenson), is grieving the recent death of her boyfriend Jamie (Alan Rickman). Sensing her profound sadness, Jamie returns as a ghost to help her process her loss. If you’ve seen the film, you’ll know that his reappearance forces her to question her memory of him and, in turn, accept that maybe he wasn’t as perfect as she’d remembered. Here in 2023, a new wave of AI-based “grief tech” offers us all the chance to spend time with loved ones after their death — in varying forms. But unlike Jamie (who benevolently misleads Nina), we’re being asked to let artificial intelligence serve up a version of those we survive. What could possibly go wrong?
While generative tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney are dominating the AI conversation, we’re broadly ignoring the larger ethical questions around topics like grief and mourning. The Pope in a puffa is cool, after all, but thinking about your loved ones after death? Not so much. If you believe generative AI avatars for the dead are still a way out, you’d be wrong. At least one company is offering digital immortality already — and it’s as costly as it is eerie.
Re;memory, for example, is a service offered by Deepbrain AI — a company whose main business includes those “virtual assistant” type interactive screens along with AI news anchors. The Korean firm took its experience with marrying chatbots and generative AI video to its ultimate, macabre conclusion. For just $10,000 dollars and a few hours in a studio, you can create an avatar of yourself that your family can visit (an additional cost) at an offsite facility. Deepbrain is based in Korea, and Korean mourning traditions include “Jesa”, an annual visit to the departed’s resting place.
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