Why Do We Still Need to Talk to the Dead?

New York Times

2 days ago

Two years after Andy O'Donnell's father died of Alzheimer's in 2021, O'Donnell decided he wanted to hear his voice again. He downloaded some videos of his father from Facebook, edited out other voices, and then uploaded to an A.I. voice platform the pure audio of his father talking. Then he copied in the text of the Lord's Prayer — something he'd heard his father recite hundreds of times in his life — and 'The Night Before Christmas,' and asked the artificial intelligence to create an audio file of his father reading both poems.
'After getting over the initial shock of hearing the incredibly accurate representation of his voice, I definitely cried,' he said, 'but it was more of a cry of relief to be able to hear his voice again because he had such a comforting voice.'
There was no feeling of eeriness one might associate with hearing voices from the dead, he said. And when he shared his recording with his siblings, they all had a similar reaction. 'It definitely aided us in our grieving process in a positive way.' O'Donnell, who lives in Montgomery, Ala., then experimented with recording A.I. speaking in his father's voice with simple words of encouragement for his family members.
O'Donnell, now 50, was raised Catholic and believes in some form of life after death, but not necessarily the traditional conception of heaven that he was raised with. But even though he knew this was not his father speaking to him from beyond the grave, it remained a powerful experience. 'I don't know that it brings closure but it definitely brings a measure of comfort to hear his voice again,' he said.
A belief that our loved ones are still accessible in some form after death is one that's found in nearly every culture around the globe, from Japanese Buddhists to the Gullah people of South Carolina. In the Hebrew Scriptures, Saul tried to outlaw the practice of employing mediums to speak to the dead, but in time, he violated his own prohibition, secretly visiting a medium to contact Samuel, who had anointed him the first king of Israel.
The desire to reach out across the divide between life and death remains one of the most primal desires we have. The A.I. 'griefbot' is just the latest iteration of that desire, often involving technology in some form, and based on a fundamental belief in life after death. According to a Pew Research report from 2023, over half of American adults said they had been visited by a dead relative, and 30 percent said they had talked back.
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