For anyone who has ever suffered a loss, Microsoft could have an incredible solution -- but it's a controversial one. The US Department of Commerce recently granted the tech giant a patent permitting the manufacture of a chatbot based on a deceased person's information, including "images, voice data, social media posts [and] electronic messages." If Microsoft goes ahead with the idea, it would create AI versions of humans, possibly accompanied by digital representations of their face or body. We already have access to the technology needed to make this happen. And we've seen AI used to bring the dead back to life before, in both sci-fi and reality.