‘I felt I was talking to him’: are AI personas of the dead a blessing or a curse?

As growing numbers of people turn to grieftech, some are disturbed by its possible consequences

When Christi Angel first talked to a chatbot impersonating her deceased partner, Cameroun, she found the encounter surreal and “very weird”.

“Yes, I knew it was an AI system but, once I started chatting, my feeling was I was talking to Cameroun. That’s how real it felt to me,” she says.

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