MIT researcher and author Sherry Turkle writes about her own encounter with “grief tech” — generative AI programs that create an avatar of a deceased person or let someone prepare an avatar for others to talk to after they die. The piece, adapted from her new book Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines, argues that letting mourners continue conversations with AI simulations of the dead can complicate grieving by making it harder to accept the loss and move on. Turkle contends that while such chatbots can feel comforting and are built to be seductive, relying on them risks eroding the human capacities people need to process grief.
