How generative AI will alter grieving and loss.

Let’s co-create an essay, shall we?

Hi, it’s Charley, and this is Untangled, a newsletter about technology, people, and power.

👇 ICYMI

• I freed an old essay from behind the paywall - “The Doom Loop of Synthetic Data” — to help you untangle the news that OpenAI intends to use synthetic data to train future models.

• I published a special issue detailing how we - yes, you! — co-construct training datasets for AI. It doubles as a deep dive into the question, ‘Uh, what is 'data'? There are now six special issues in total. Fun, huh?

• Meta began rolling out its AI assistant across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp. To understand how this will enlist you in a ‘networked performance,’ read my January essay, “Synthetic social media.”

On to the show!

---

Just me and my mom, hanging out.

I’m researching an essay on how generative AI might alter the grieving process, and I need your help. People now use AI chatbots to interact with synthetic versions of lost loved ones. Companies like HereAfter AI are training AI chatbots — let’s call these ‘GriefBots’ — on the digital footprints of the deceased, and we’re interacting with them.

Now, grieving and technology have always been entangled. We’ve long used technologies (e.g. photographs) to maintain a connection with lost loved ones while trying to move forward in life. My mom passed unexpectedly in 2019 right before the pandemic, and her birthday was April 19 (which is undoubtedly why I’m thinking about grief and loss at the moment), so two days ago I listened to an old voicemail and watched a video exchange we had over Marco Polo. This has become one of many annual traditions and rituals that help me sustain a connection. But it also raised the question: how might GriefBots alter our connection and our ability to move forward?

To start imagining what might change, let’s look at the differences between past technologies and the prospect of GriefBots:

• Old photographs and videos are authentic. Based on their digital footprint, GriefBot is generating a synthetic version of the deceased.

• The images and videos are a static representation of a moment in time. GriefBot uses past data to generate new outputs. As a result, the outputs of such a GriefBot might feel more alive. The outputs are also based on a sliver of the deceased’s personality — whatever was captured digitally.

• Since GriefBot offers probabilistic outputs, it will generate things that the deceased would never say, in tones and cadences they would never use.

One might argue that GriefBots are likely to prevent closure; that in continuing a conversation with the deceased, grieving will never end. But I don’t really believe in closure. While my experience of grief has changed shapes over the years, and while I’ve healed and moved forward in life, ‘closure’ doesn’t feel like the right word. There wasn’t / isn’t a complete ending to my relationship with my mom. I still write letters to her on occasion. I still think of how she might respond or what she might say. Right, as Mitch Albom wrote, “Death ends a life, not a relationship.”

But we can experience a loss that confuses connection and complicates resolution. Dr. Pauline Boss coined the term ‘ambiguous loss’ to refer to “loss that remains unclear and without verification or immediate resolution, which may never be achieved.” Boss was referring to the idea that the people we love can be “physically gone but kept psychologically present — or the opposite, physically present but psychologically gone.” In short, we can lose a physical connection while maintaining an emotional connection. Or we can lose an emotional connection while maintaining a physical connection. And this ambiguity complicates our ability to heal and move forward in life.

I suspect that interacting with a GriefBot will amplify the effects of ambiguous loss; and that engaging in an ongoing conversation with an AI model of our loved ones will deepen the sense that they are there but not there. But I want to invite you into the research process. So how do you think interacting with a GriefBot might:

• Alter your experience of loss and grieving.

• Cultivate a sense that the deceased is there but not there.

• Effect the meaning-making process and the stories you tell yourself about the deceased.

What thoughts and questions come up for you? I’m also curious if this is a future that concerns or excites you. You can leave a comment below or, if you’d rather share your ideas and reflections privately hit ‘reply’ and send me a note.