In recent months, the parents of a Parkland, Florida, school shooting victim used artificial intelligence to re-create the voice of their son, Joaquin Oliver, to advocate for gun control.
A father used recordings of his late daughter and AI to create a video of her singing a birthday greeting for her mother.
Hollywood has also digitally brought back stars like Carrie Fisher to appear in films after they died.
New platforms and apps have made possible a new era of animating the voices or visual images of those we are grieving for.
Beyond the static photos, voicemail messages, and videos of loved ones we once might have treasured, we can now keep an interactive version of that person: one with whom we can potentially converse.
But should we?
What are the implications of such deathless digital avatars?
The Central Question
AI is already creating chat, audio, and video representations that mimic deceased people.
Will conversing with them comfort loved ones, or will it prolong the feeling of loss and prevent them from moving on?
If the chatbots are flawed, could they warp our understanding of who the person really was?
Source: Wall Street Journal, 5/13/24, “Should We Use AI to Re-Create Our Loved Ones After They Die?”
Questions
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Suppose that at some point in the future, we are able to take brain scans of a person after they have died and upload that information to an AI chatbot. The chatbot will have the deceased person’s memories, personality, mannerisms, and so on. Does this change whether we should use AI to re-create our loved one?
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Would this enhanced scenario actually be “re-creating our loved ones after they die”? Is the current application of AI actually “re-creating our loved ones after they die”?
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Suppose you could do this brain scan on a living person. Would it be acceptable to create an alternative loved one so that you have an extra version hanging around in case you really need to talk to them? Could you make an extra version of yourself so that you could really talk to yourself?
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Suppose you could do this brain scan on a living person without them knowing. Can you go around making chatbot copies of people to talk to just because you are lonely?
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Suppose a loved one died and had said, “Under no circumstances should you make a chatbot copy of me.” Can you do it anyway after they die? Would you be harming anyone if you did it anyway?
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Many of these questions have been about our moral obligations to the person being scanned or copied. Are there reasons why you should not re-create a loved one because of the effects on you? In other words, are there any inherent negative consequences for you as a person using a chatbot that re-creates a deceased person?