Looking for closure, a grandson built a ghost in the machine

Griefbots are AI programs designed to simulate a conversation with a loved one who has died. Julia Stoyanovich, institute associate professor and director of the Center for Responsible AI, pointed out that each griefbot requires delicate customization — the bot simulating the same person should have different versions for different users: “We need to make sure that the information doesn’t leak across these boundaries of access. It’s not about who creates it. It’s about who is going to use it,” adding that if “you take data from multiple sources and put it together. How you map data and how you integrate the data can be very arbitrary. If you try the same process the next day, you might get an entirely different result.”