DIGITAL GHOSTS OR ARTIFICIAL ZOMBIES?

The feelings that arise from the death of our loved ones can be unbearable, we would do anything to bring them back. Especially when death comes unexpectedly, leaving us with no chance to say goodbye.

Today, an artificial intelligence can be used to analyze data about the deceased, creating a virtual replica of them that can be interacted with via chat interface..
We leave behind a huge amount of information. Messages from conversations where we reveal our personality & communication style. Posts on social media, where we express our views on world events & fundamental issues. There are voice & video messages. All of this data can be used to train a neural network, which can analyze it to identify our characteristics & mimic our speech patterns. This means that the neural network will be able to generate human-like responses.
We can communicate with digital ghosts as if we were in a simple conversation. They are often indistinguishable from humans in conversation, possessing memory, planning abilities & even the ability to joke.
They can age by changing their perspectives & communication style.

Even the most detailed resemblance of digital ghosts to a lost loved one may not be as positive as it seems. Digital Ghosts can be harmful to people's mental health by interfering with the normal process of grieving. Grieving requires time & sometimes goes through stages of reconciliation with grief, which can last for many years. During this time, those experiencing grief may often think about the deceased, constantly recalling memories with them. AI ghosts can contribute to addiction & avoidance of contact with living people.
A person whose mental health has been compromised by severe grief may even lose touch with reality as they repeatedly revisit their interactions with the deceased through the chatbot. They may believe that they are actually communicating with the deceased person. Therefore, digital ghosts can further traumatize individuals experiencing complicated grief & exacerbate related issues such as hallucinations.
After a strong attachment to the digital copy of a deceased person, mourners may face the need to relive their loss. This can be due to various reasons, such as the closure of the project, the inability to pay for chat support, technical issues, or hacker attacks that critically damage user data. These factors can further exacerbate the mental health of mourners.
We shouldn't forget that language AI often tends to hallucinate itself, generating answers at random that seem very plausible. If this happens with a ghost AI, it could provide answers that misrepresent the deceased person, damaging their reputation. For example, it could express views that are completely uncharacteristic of the deceased person or provide advice that the deceased person would never have given in their lifetime, particularly if it is harmful.
The problem of digital ghosts may become a threat to society as they may give rise to a new type of crime.

Every culture has its own reasons for communicating with the spirits of the dead. Rituals & practices that involve contact with the spirits of the dead have equally ancient & profound roots.
Beliefs in an afterlife are an important part of most major religions, so an AI-related death could change religious practices if it became widespread. This could happen as an update to specific rituals, such as funeral rituals, to incorporate new technology. It could also lead to the emergence of new religious movements where people worship digital ghosts or perceive them as supernatural beings. As a result, world religions may need to update their guidelines & dogmas to incorporate technology into their beliefs.

As much as people would like to believe that technology can provide eternal life, it is impossible. A digital zombie has no consciousness, no emotions.
It is impossible to recreate the workings of the human mind. Digital resurrection is just a reflection of the mind's activity.
Accepting death occurs when people let go of their deceased loved ones. To this end, psychologists recommend removing items & photographs to avoid unnecessary reminders. Even these reminders can turn normal grief into pathological grief. If we're talking about a digital copy of a person, people can easily become addicted to chat, lose touch with reality & develop mental disorders.

Death is an inevitable aspect of life & as difficult as it may be to accept, death helps us to appreciate the value of every moment. The problem is that trying to avoid it with technology can lead to a loss of this value, as well as the creation of an illusion of immortality that will only make the process of accepting the inevitable more difficult.

Billions are being made from digital immortality technologies & it's likely that these technologies will continue to be developed until they can be used to create robots that are indistinguishable from living ( or dead? ) humans.

We should be careful with what we invite into our life..

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