Bereaved people are using AI to 'bring back' their dead relatives - but experts warn the Black Mirror-style tech can make it harder to say goodbye

Back in 2012, Canadian freelance writer Joshua Barbeau tragically lost his fiancée, Jessica, when she succumbed to a rare liver disease. Eight years later and still struggling with his grief, Barbeau came across a curious website called Project December, billed as'the world's most super computer'. Powered by an early version of OpenAI's ChatGPT, for just 5, Project December let him recreate an AI version of Jessica if he typed in details of what she had been like. After typing'Jessica?', the AI version of his deceased girlfriend told him: 'I miss you every single day' and'I am the girl that you are madly in love with.' Speaking on a new BBC documentary'Storyville: Eternal You', Barbeau, now 36, found the eerie tech'uncannily' similar to his loved one. He says: 'It really felt like a gift, like a weight had been lifted that I had been carrying for a long time.'