AI grief bots and the dangerous promise of digital immortality

A new, and advancing, development in AI is raising questions over our relationship with the most fundamental aspects of human experience – facing up to death.

Many people have not yet heard of “grief bots”, but they are very real.

“Digital afterlife companies” will upload every detail of a dead loved to create an AI simulation for you to talk and interact with. It will share your memories, chat over dinner give advice and, as technology advances it will … well, let’s see what’s next.

Reactions differ with some people seeing it as a gift, helping them cope with loss, others find it chilling and feel a line has been crossed. As is often the case the arts are the perfect place for us to start to dig into the questions such technology raises, both practical and ethical.

My son Ihsan’s Fringe play, A Better Life, in which I play the role of a widow who decides to switch on the grief bot containing her husband’s digital ghost does precisely this. After reading the script and beginning rehearsals it is something which I found has raised increasing numbers of personal questions for me.

My father, Ihsan Uullah Khand, died when he was 45 and I was 16. It was sudden and a shock for the whole family. I loved him very dearly.

He was a Pakistani chemist who was invited across to carry out research at Strathclyde University, and we had settled to a new life in 1970s Glasgow.

Following his death we had to re-organise our family set up, make changes to our lives and make sure we all looked after each other and to find own ways to grieve.

As the eldest I had to be the strong one, but I would go and sit in the “good room” where my father had spent a lot of time with his favourite hobby, recording his music from LPs to cassettes. I felt close to him there.

I often found myself crying in the room whilst doing my chemistry homework, a subject my father had excelled in so much that they had named a chemical reaction after him, tears blotting my homework.

I quickly wiped the tears as my brother came into see if I could help him with his homework.

But in reality I knew he was keeping an eye on me, his big sister. Years later we talked about it and how we coped with grief. But the fact that we lost our dad at such a young age had an impact on us all.

My father died the year I was doing exams to get into do medicine. I didn’t succeed and became a pharmacist instead.

My career in the NHS, in the diabetes field, has been a very successful one, winning a global award for my work.

Ihsan’s play made me think. If my father had still been there – a hologram, a voice of encouragement – would that have been enough to get me through those medical exams. Instead of going into pharmacy I might have been a GP.

And then later, when I wanted a change of direction and became a stand-up comedian, playwright and actor – what would my grief bot have said and advised

Would it be healthy to be influenced by the simulation of a man long dead, having my emotional reactions influenced by a machine memory?

Would I have given myself the space to cope with the grief? What if it was you and your loved ones? We don’t know and do we really want to know?

It’s one of those areas where religious traditions might well offer us some wisdom. The Abrahamic faiths of Islam, Christianity and Judaism ask us to trust that there is a God who knows better than we do.

Many people of faith would see grief bots as questioning an order in which humans are specifically given limited lifespans, and where the survivors must confront loss.

Whether you are religious are not, these ideas underline how profound the consequences for individuals and societies could be if we shy away from big realities. There are established theories about how humans face and move through grief. But what happens if increasing numbers of people fail to go through this process?

I strongly feel that accepting grief is part of our growing as a person and that we create new bonds with people affected by the loss.

Once we remembered people by looking at photos, then watching videos of them but what if we have their voice, is a hologram next? Is the Abba Phenomena just the start of never having to lose a loved one.

I feel this is ultimately bad for our emotional wellbeing.

Grief bots prevent closure and might offer temporary, false comfort but they can’t give you the heartfelt hug that comes from another human who is empathising with you.

And if we have concerns about this technology at a personal and family level, perhaps we should imagine what happens if it goes a step further.

How many tyrants – like the Roman emperors who declared themselves gods or the Pharaohs who were embalmed to lie in the pyramids – wanted to challenge death.

And how many of their families, ministers and acolytes would have adored the idea of clinging to their own wealth and power by having the “great leader” live on?

When we open the door to digital eternity, what forces will we let loose.

A Better Memory is at The Green at Pleasance Courtyard from 5-30 August at 6.30pm.