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Technology

Resurrecting loved ones as AI 'ghosts' could harm your mental health

It may soon be possible to recreate the persona of someone who has
died by training an artificial intelligence on their emails and texts
- but is it a good idea?

By Matthew Sparkes

26 February 2024

      

[SEI_192720238]

Could your loved one be reborn as an AI?

Yuichiro Chino/Moment RF/Getty Images

Resurrecting deceased loved ones using artificial intelligence could
harm mental health, create dependence on the technology and even spur
a new religion, researchers have warned.

AI chatbots trained on text from the internet have become ever more
capable and convincing in recent years. Jed Brubaker at the
University of Colorado Boulder and Meredith Morris at Google DeepMind
say the possibility of training such an AI solely on the archived
emails, text messages and other writings from a single person, to
create...

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