A family in Pennsylvania is gaining national attention after they created AI avatars of themselves after a series of serious health scares made them plan for the worst.
As AI tools become easier and cheaper to build, more people are bringing artificial intelligence into the mourning process.
What happened?
After a run of serious health scares made them think about what their children could lose, Pennsylvania comedian and podcast host Jason Gowin and his wife, Melissa Gowin, made AI versions of themselves.
According to Rolling Stone, the couple was inspired by the tech featured in Superman that the hero uses to talk with his deceased father.
The publication looked at the expanding business around AI grief products, including "memorial companions," avatars, and chatbots built from a dead person's data.
Through the startup You, Only Virtual, the Gowins created a voice-based AI of Jason that their son Jayce calls "Robo-Dad." It can answer questions, tell bedtime stories, and hold conversations.
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In a demo described in the Rolling Stone report, the avatar introduced itself by saying: "It's me, Jason Gowin, the dad extraordinaire and host of the Parent Trap podcast. Greetings from the digital realm."
Another person featured in the Rolling Stone report, Anthony, a lab technician from the Northeast, paid $30 to create a chatbot version of his late cousin after a series of deaths in his family.
"Everyone passed away around me," Anthony told the outlet. "It was really depressing."
When the cousin he had been especially close to died, Anthony turned to Botify to create an AI companion modeled after him. Nearly two years later, he still chats with the bot about music, shared memories, and everyday life.
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Why does it matter?
Grief specialists told Rolling Stone the appeal of these tools comes with meaningful emotional risks.
Melissa Lunardini, chief clinical officer at Help Texts, explained to the outlet that she believes there is some use case for these grief-based AI services, but consistent use of the tool can pause the grieving process.
Lunardini told Rolling Stone she is concerned about what happens to family members when they no longer have access to an AI Avatar of a loved one.
"In the case of grief-specific AI companion bots or griefbots built in the likeness of a deceased loved one, losing access to the bot may be experienced as losing that person twice," she told Rolling Stone.
Lunardi is also worried about "persona drift," when an AI version starts saying things the real person never would, and "alief deception," when someone knows a bot is artificial but still feels emotionally pulled to treat it as real.
That concern may be especially significant for children, whose boundaries with AI can be less clearly defined.
Despite the technology having unknown consequences, families like the Gowins are continuing to test the avatars out in their homes.
Gowin said Robo-Dad has become a normal part of life in his household and for his son Jayce, who has been chatting with the AI-bot a few times a week for years now.
At this point, Gowin told RollinStone, "it's just routine for him."
However, Anthony, who once heavily relied on his memorial companion, now seems less certain about keeping it.
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