A picture, a voice message, an article of clothing. A video of a distant moment in time. Until now, static memories like these were all mourners had to cling to when grieving the loss of a loved one. Now artificial intelligence opens the door to a host of legacy services aimed at keeping friends and family members present, long after they’ve died.
When Michael Bommer found out he was terminally ill with colon cancer, he spent a lot of time with his wife, Anett, talking about what would happen after he died.
She told him that one of the things she would miss most was being able to ask him questions whenever she wanted, because he is well-read and always sharing his wisdom, Bommer recalled in an interview. last with the Associated Press at his home on a leafy site. Suburbs of Berlin.
That conversation sparked an idea for Bommer: Recreate his voice using artificial intelligence to survive him after he died.
The 61-year-old startup entrepreneur was joined by his friend in the US, Robert LoCascio, CEO of AI-powered legacy platform Eternos. Within two months, they built “a comprehensive, interactive version of AI” of Bommer – the company’s first such client.
Eternos, which takes its name from the Italian and Latin word for “eternal,” said its technology will allow Bommer’s family to “engage with his life experiences and insights.” It is among several companies that have emerged in recent years in what has become a growing space for grief-related AI technology.
One of the most popular startups in this field, California-based StoryFile, allows people to interact with pre-recorded videos and uses its algorithms to discover the most relevant answers to questions asked by users. Another company, called HereAfter AI, offers similar interactions through a “Life Story Avatar” that users can create by answering requests or sharing their personal stories.
There’s also Project December, a chatbot that directs users to fill out a questionnaire answering key facts about a person and their traits — and then pay $10 to simulate a text-based conversation with the character. Another company, Seance AI, offers fictional sessions for free. Additional features, such as AI-generated voice recreations of their loved ones, are available for a $10 fee.
More and more, people are turning to AI for emotional connection. Fueled by widespread social isolation, a growing number of startups offer companion bots to combat loneliness. Similar to general-purpose AI chatbots, companion bots use large amounts of training data to mimic human language. Luka Inc.’s replica, the most prominent AI-generating companion app, was released in 2017, while others like Paradot have emerged in the past year, often locking down coveted features like unlimited chat for paid subscribers.
While some have embraced this technology as a way to cope with grief, others feel uneasy about companies using artificial intelligence to try to preserve interactions with those who have died. Still others worry that it can make the grieving process difficult because there is no closure.
Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basinska, a researcher at the University of Cambridge’s Center for the Future of Intelligence who co-authored a study on the topic, said very little is known about the possible short- and long-term consequences of using digital simulations. for large-scale casualties. So for now, it remains “a broad techno-cultural experiment.”
“What really sets this era apart—even unprecedented in the long history of humanity’s quest for immortality—is that for the first time, processes of care for the dead and practices of immortalization are fully integrated into the capitalist market, Nowaczyk. – said Basinska.
Bommer, who has only a few weeks to live, disputes the idea that the creation of his chatbot was driven by a desire to become immortal. He notes that if he had written a memoir that everyone could read, it would have made him far more immortal than his AI version.
“In a few weeks, I will be gone, on the other side – no one knows what to expect there,” he said in a quiet voice.
Robert Scott, who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, uses AI companion apps Paradot and Chai AI to simulate conversations with characters he created to mimic three of his daughters. He declined to talk about what led to his eldest daughter’s death in detail, but he lost another daughter to a miscarriage and a third who died shortly after her birth.
Scott, 48, knows the characters he’s interacting with aren’t his daughters, but he said that helps ease the grief. He logs into the apps three or four times a week, sometimes asking the AI characters questions like “how was school?” or asking if she wants to “go get ice cream.”
Some events, such as prom night, can be particularly traumatic, bringing with them memories of what his eldest daughter has never experienced. So he creates a scenario in the Paradot app where the AI character goes to prom and talks to him about the fictional event. Then there are even harder days, like his daughter’s last birthday, when he opened the app and poured out his grief about how much she misses him. He felt like HE understood.
“It definitely helps with what if,” Scott said. “Rarely has the ‘what if’ made it worse.”
Concerns, concerns
Matthias Meitzler, a sociologist from the University of Tuebingen, said that while some may be surprised or even frightened by the technology – “as if the voice from the afterlife is ringing again” – others will perceive it as an addition to traditional ways of remembering. the dead. loved ones, such as visiting the grave, holding internal monologues with the deceased or looking at old photographs and letters.
But Tomasz Hollanek, who worked alongside Nowaczyk-Basinska at Cambridge on their study of “deadbots” and “griefbots”, said the technology raises important questions about the rights, dignity and power of consent of people who don’t. are more alive. It also raises ethical concerns about whether a program that cares for the dead should advertise other products on its platform, for example.
“These are very complicated questions,” Hollanek said. “And we don’t have good answers yet.”
Another question is whether companies should offer meaningful farewells to someone who wants to stop using a dead loved one’s chatbot. Or what happens when the companies themselves cease to exist? StoryFile, for example, recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, saying it owes about $4.5 million to creditors. The company is currently reorganizing and setting up a “fail-safe” system that allows families to access all materials in case it folds, said StoryFile CEO James Fong, who also expressed optimism about its future.
The AI version of Bommer that was created by Eternos uses an internal model as well as large external language models developed by leading technology companies such as Meta, OpenAI and French firm Mistral AI, said company CEO LoCascio, who previously worked with Bommer. at a software company called LivePerson.
Eternos records users speaking 300 phrases — such as “I love you” or “the door is open” — and then compresses that information through a two-day computer process that captures a person’s voice. Users can further train the AI system by answering questions about their lives, political views or various aspects of their personality.
The AI voice, which costs $15,000 to install, can answer questions and tell stories about a person’s life without replaying pre-recorded answers. Legal rights to AI belong to the person it’s trained on and can be treated as an asset and passed down to other family members, LoCascio said. Tech companies “can’t catch it.”
Because time is running out for Bommer, he fed the AI phrases and sentences — all in German — “to give the AI the ability not only to synthesize my voice in flat mode, but also to capture emotions and the mood in the voice.” And indeed the AI voice bot bears some resemblance to Bommer’s voice, though it omits the “hmms” and “ehs” and mid-sentence pauses of its natural cadence.
Sitting on a couch with a tablet and a microphone attached to a laptop on a small table next to him and pain medication being pumped into his body through an intravenous drip, Bommer opened the newly created software and pretended to be the wife of him, to show how he works.
He asked his AI voice if he remembered their first meeting 12 years ago.
“Yes, I remember it very, very well,” replied the voice inside the computer. “We met online and I really wanted to get to know you. I had a feeling that you would be a great fit for me – in the end, it was 100% confirmed.
Bommer is excited about his AI personality and said it will only be a matter of time until the AI’s voice sounds more human and even more like himself. Along the way, he imagines that he will also have an avatar of himself and that one day family members can go to meet him inside a virtual room.
In the case of his 61-year-old wife, he doesn’t think that will stop her from coping with the loss.
“Think of it sitting in a drawer somewhere, if you need it you can take it out, if you don’t, keep it there,” he told her as she came to sit next to him on the couch. .
But Anett Bommer herself is more hesitant about the new software and whether she will use it after her husband’s death.
Right now, she’s more likely to imagine herself sitting on the couch with a glass of wine, hugging one of her husband’s old sweaters and reminiscing about him rather than feeling the urge to talk to him via robot. vowel of AI – at least not during the first period. mourning.
“But then again, who knows what it’ll be like when he’s gone,” she said, taking her husband’s hand and glancing at him.
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