Every few years, Hany Farid and his wife have the grim but necessary conversation about their end-of-life plans. They hope to have many more decades together--Farid is 58, and his wife is 38--but they want to make sure they have their affairs in order when the time comes. In addition to discussing burial requests and financial decisions, Farid has recently broached an eerier topic: If he dies first, would his wife want to digitally resurrect him as an AI clone? Farid, an AI expert at UC Berkeley, knows better than most that physical death and digital death are two different things. "My wife has my voice, my likeness, and a lot of my writings," he told me. "She could very easily train a large language model to be an interactive version of me."

When Sunshine Henle's mother, Linda, died unexpectedly at the age of 72, Henle, a 42-year-old Floridian, was left with what she describes as a "gaping hole of silence" in her life. Even though Linda had lived in New York, where she worked as a Sunday school teacher, the pair had kept in constant contact through phone calls and texting. "I always knew she was there, no matter what – if I was upset, or if I just needed to talk. She would always respond," says Henle. In November, Linda collapsed in her home and was unable to move. Henle's brother Sam and her sister-in-law Julie took her to urgent care.

Orthodox Catholic philosopher Joe Vukov discusses the moral implications of using artificial intelligence to cope with the loss of loved ones. This year is shaping up to be the year of artificial intelligence. ChatGPT has stolen most of the headlines, but it is only the most infamous in a wide assortment AI platforms. One of the most recent to arrive on the scene is HereAfter AI, an app that can "preserve memories with an app that interviews you about your life." The goal: to "let loved ones hear meaningful stories by chatting with the virtual you."

In 2016, James Vlahos discovered that his father was dying from terminal lung cancer. Painfully aware that their time together was running out, Vlahos rushed to gather memories while he still could, recording his father's life story; everything from childhood memories to his favourite sayings, songs and jokes. Once transcribed, these recordings filled 200 single-spaced pages. "It was a great, but inert resource, and I longed for something interactive. So I spent nearly a year programming a chatbot replica of my father: the'Dadbot,'" said Vlahos.

Over the last couple years, I've been spending time writing about creating ghosts -- perhaps an inevitability in the midst of a pandemic. While created by far-from-supernatural means, these are ghosts nonetheless; they are created from an essence of you -- from your voice, your data, your feelings, beliefs, habits, and history. Groups around the world are looking to take such information, this essence, and use it to create a digital version of you that may last once you are gone. Consider it a technological solution to the problem of death. Over the last couple years, I've been writing about creating ghosts -- perhaps an inevitability in the midst of a pandemic.

It's January 17, 2020-- the world has yet to change; Wuhan locks down six days later -- and Emil Jimenez is on a train from Vienna to Prague. "She's like, 'Daddy,' y'know, 'what is this?'" Jimenez tells me on a video call from the Czech Republic. Jimenez tells her it's Siri, and encourages her to talk to the digital assistant. Her first question is if Siri has a mother. From there, she peppers the artificial intelligence with the kinds of questions kids ask -- do you like ice cream?