Considering AI’s advancements could convince you that you’re yelling at a human customer service representative about your extended warranty, it was only a matter of time before someone deployed that tech to put you in touch with another non-living person: a dead relative.
In fact, that time is now, and it’s becoming so common there’s a name for it: grief tech.
As reported, one Japanese company already used virtual reality to “reunite” a mother with her dead child — and that was creepy as all get-out.
But using AI-powered chats — fed with texts and emails from the deceased person to grasp their writing style, along with information about that person’s hobbies, family and even cause of death — could be a less disturbing way to have one last conversation with that person.
The blog Futurism looked into one of the companies banking on that, called Seance AI. The company uses OpenAI’s API software to let you have a short DM conversation with someone from beyond the grave.
Designer Jarren Rocks says it’s meant to be used like a digital Ouija board, rather than a method of artificially keeping that person alive forever. “It’s essentially meant to be a short interaction that can provide a sense of closure,” he explains. “It’s not meant to be something super long-term. In its current state, it’s meant to provide a conversation for closure and emotional processing.”
The company is still working out the kinks. It tends to get repetitive the longer you converse, Rocks admits.
With that in mind, Rocks says they’re trying to determine how best to roll it out to the public, with a “pay per session” model being the most likely, “to deter users from summoning the dead too often,” says Futurism writer Maggie Harrison.