Take everything someone has ever written — every text message, email, journal entry, blog post — and feed it into a chatbot. Imagine that after that person dies, they could then continue to talk to you in their own voice, forever. It’s a concept called “chatbots of the dead.” In 2021, Microsoft obtained a program that would do exactly that: train a chatbot to emulate the speech of a dead friend or family member. 

“Yes, it’s disturbing,” admitted Tim O’Brien, Microsoft’s general manager of AI programs, when news of the patent hit the headlines. For some, the notion of talking to a loved one from beyond the grave elicited feelings of revulsion and fear, something that philosophy researchers Joel Krueger and Lucy Osler call “the ick factor.” In October 2022, the U.K. researchers, based at Exeter and Cardiff universities respectively, published “Communing with the Dead Online,” a research paper that looks at the role that chatbots could play in the grieving process. Since then, the capabilities of artificial intelligence large language models have snowballed — and their influence on our lives. Krueger and Osler say we should consider how chatbots might help us in our darkest days by continuing our relationship with loved ones after they’ve died. 

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

What role could a chatbot potentially play after a person has died?