(Nature) – Developers of griefbots say that they help people by allowing them to commune with recreations of the dead, but others say that the technology is fraught with danger.

“Saying goodbye to Dadbot was surprisingly hard,” she says. “When I finished and turned it off, I spent the rest of the day feeling like I had done something wrong.”

Interactive digital recreations of people who have died are known by various names: deathbots, thanabots, ghostbots and, perhaps most commonly, griefbots. Nolan created Dadbot by combining the chatbot ChatGPT with a voice-modelling program made by AI software firm ElevenLabs in New York City. But there are now more than half a dozen platforms that offer this service straight out of the box, and developers say that millions of people are using them to text, call or otherwise interact with recreations of the deceased.

Proponents of the technology think that it comforts people in mourning. Sceptics suggest that it could complicate the grieving process. Despite a rapid uptake of this technology in the past few years, there is scant research so far to prove that either group is correct. (Read More)