The rapid advance of artificial intelligence has gained a foothold in many areas of every day life, but now it’s beginning to gain traction in a place most never anticipated – the afterlife.

According to this recent article in TIME Magazine, “The Dead Have Never Been So Talkative: The Rise of AI Resurrection,” AI generated digital recreations of the deceased are rapidly becoming a “thing” that many people are resorting to in order to maintain some sense of connection to a lost loved one.

Known as griefbots, this is an emerging technology powered by AI that can mimic the deceased’s speech, behavior, and personality by relying upon data such as their text messages, social media posts, and video recordings. The bereaved typically interact with their AI loved one either via a chatbox or in video or audio recordings. They are then marketed to the bereaved as a tool to comfort them.

According to TIME’s Tharin Pillay, the idea gained traction when Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian used the tools offered by AI image-generation company, Midjourney, to animate an image of his late mother hugging him. In the video, she’s laughing and rocking him in her arms.

“I wasn't ready for how this would feel,” Ohanian wrote. “This is how she hugged me. I've rewatched it 50 times.”

This is precisely what griefbots are designed to do, bring comfort to the bereaved in a much more experiential way that resorting to a medium who merely lends a voice to alleged messages from the dead.

However, that's only one side of the issue. On the other side we find the problems posed by griefbots that are many and varied and are serious enough to warrant careful attention.

One of the more serious problems is referred to as “grief interrupted,” with experts saying these digital recreations of the dead could complicate the grieving process. Instead of confronting the death of the loved one, the sense of connection a person feels to the bot of their loved one may interrupt that process.

On another level, just like mediums are known to exploit people who come to them for messages from their deceased loved ones, the commercialization of griefbots raises serious concerns about exploitation.

“Grieving individuals, in their emotional vulnerability, may be susceptible to expensive services marketed as tools for solace,” says this blog appearing on the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Institute for Human Rights Blog. “This commodification of mourning could be seen as taking advantage of grief for profit.”

In addition, “As these interactions become increasingly tailored to highlight what users most liked about their loved ones, the griefbot may unintentionally alter or oversimplify memories of the deceased, fostering emotional dependency. This optimization could transform genuine mourning into a form of addiction.”

Another interesting question raised by the UAB article is how misrepresentations or misuse of a griefbot could distort a person’s memory or values, altering how loved ones and society remember them.

“These distortions may result from incomplete or biased data, creating an inaccurate portrayal of the deceased. Such inaccuracies could harm the deceased’s dignity and legacy, raising concerns about how we ethically represent and honor the dead.”

From a Catholic point-of-view, griefbots raise the risk of distorting our belief in life after death, which is a critical component of our faith. If we can keep a version of our loved one alive, why believe in the afterlife at all?

How much respect are we showing to the personhood of our loved one if we reduce them to a fabrication of who they once were?

The Church believes in the importance of authentic human relationships. Griefbots undermine this teaching by encouraging an artificial form of intimacy with a caricature rather than a human being.

Although some say griefbots can be helpful if used correctly, introducing them to the bereaved when they are at their most vulnerable run the risk of encouraging a dependence that is neither spiritually nor emotionally healthy.

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