Saturday 8 June 2024

Implications Of Griefbots

Daniel Defoe’s book, 'The Political History Of The Devil' said that: 'Things as certain as death and taxes, can be more firmly believ’d' and although there is nothing we can do about Taxes there are some AI companies who are trying to do what they can about death by allowing people to interact with dead friends and relatives.
Not the actual dead person but an Ai driven algorithm which will simulate digital simulations and a conversation with the dead person based on uploaded videos and questionnaires completed by the still living about their lives, political views or various aspects of their personalities.
All sounds very creepy to me but some are embracing it as a way to cope with grief and using it as a way to remember dead loved ones and terminally ill people have been using the system to capture and synthesise their voice's to add even more reality to the experience.
Labelled 'deadbots' and 'griefbots', i can see how it could attract some people stricken with grief but it appears to me to be a modern version of the charlatan Spiritualists and psychics who receive money to 'communicate' with the dead because these 'griefbots' are businesses out to make money so they will be encouraging interaction and i envision notifications or updates from their dead loved ones and that can't be good psychologically for a grief-stricken person.
The bots would be used to advertise products, business remember and advertising revenue is important, and that moves us into all sorts of ethical questions so i'm very uneasy that these are becoming a thing because people will use them and who knows how grief mixed with strong emotions at such a difficult time will play out.