Life after death is a topic that has kept some of the greatest minds occupied for millennia. It's something we tend to shy away from talking about, but unfortunately, death and grieving are inevitable realities of being human. With ground-breaking research happening in Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence, could chatbot technology hold the answer we've been looking for? When you suffer loss, there is a longing to speak to the deceased again – and technology is making this possible. Death today comes with the uncanny nature of leaving behind a digital footprint, a legacy of social media posts, videos, pictures and text messages – what are the living meant to do with these?

This year has seen both artificial intelligence (AI) along with bots dominate tech news based on the advancements that have been taking place in both areas. We're just beginning to see the possibilities and implications that both of these technologies will bring in our near futures. People have been contemplating ways to leverage these technologies for creating a presence for people that have died long before they began dominating the news. Several years ago I discovered Lifenaut and found myself intrigued and imagining a future where a digital version of myself would exist long after I died. The service allows you to upload documents, photos, videos, additional data as well as connect to your social accounts.

In most cases, the answer to that question is "Not much." But that's something that will be forever changed as a result of the hundreds of thousands of pieces of digital content the average person will produce in his or her lifetime. Think about it -- while at best you might have a few photos, newspaper clippings or secondhand accounts of your ancestors, our descendants and all those to follow will have at their fingertips a deep digital archive of information that we created ourselves. That's just one of the many things that started occurring to me earlier this year when I began to ponder what the social media revolution means for our digital legacies. But my belief isn't just that the content we're creating is going to leave behind an interesting first-person account of each of us that will create a new dynamic of understanding our past for future generations.

Life after death is a topic that has kept some of the greatest minds occupied for millennia. It's something we tend to shy away from talking about, but unfortunately, death and grieving are inevitable realities of being human. With ground-breaking research happening in natural language processing and artificial intelligence, could technology hold the answer we've been looking for? When you suffer loss, there is a longing to speak to the deceased again – and technology is making this possible. Death today comes with the uncanny nature of leaving behind a digital footprint, a legacy of social media posts, videos, pictures and text messages – what are the living meant to do with these?

This year has seen both artificial intelligence (AI) along with bots dominate tech news based on the advancements that have been taking place in both areas. We're just beginning to see the possibilities and implications that both of these technologies will bring in our near futures. People have been contemplating ways to leverage these technologies for creating a presence for people that have died long before they began dominating the news. Several years ago I discovered Lifenaut and found myself intrigued and imagining a future where a digital version of myself would exist long after I died. The service allows you to upload documents, photos, videos, additional data as well as connect to your social accounts.