Grief Tech | Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad

This project focuses on the use of AI and machine learning to simulate the personalities and behaviors of the deceased, a field often referred to as “digital afterlife” or “GriefBots.” By leveraging natural language processing, machine learning models, and extensive personal data, this work aims to create a digital representation of individuals that can interact and respond in ways that reflect their unique personalities. This project is deeply personal to me, as I focused on simulating my late father’s personality (Ahmad, 2016), exploring how his digital twin can preserve his essence and offer a sense of connection after his passing.

While this work holds the potential to provide comfort and continuity for those grieving the loss of loved ones, it also raises significant ethical and societal questions. My research delves into the broader implications of digital immortality, including the emotional impact on individuals, the ethical considerations of consent and data usage, and the impacts commercialization of such technologies. This project has been extensively covered in the media.

References

2016

CHI
After death: big data and the promise of resurrection by proxy

Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad

In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2016

Abs Bib Slides

With the advent of Big Data and the possibility of capturing massive personal data it is possible to simulate some aspects of a person’s personality. The imitation game is based on the observation that it is possible to convince a person of a fake identity if sufficient information is available about the identity being faked. Imitation is however not limited to a person who is alive but also a person who is not alive; the question of simulating a deceased person for the purpose of having the simulation interact with a person is addressed. Various challenges and background considerations for such an endeavor are discussed. The goal of the paper is to open up discussion on this subject and examine its feasibility.
@inproceedings{ahmad2016after, title = {After death: big data and the promise of resurrection by proxy}, author = {Ahmad, Muhammad Aurangzeb}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems}, pages = {397--408}, year = {2016}, url = {https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/2851581.2892591}, }