Woman uses AI to 'chat' with dead mother, gets 'spooky' results as responses felt too real

Separation and the loss of a loved one are some of the most brutal realities that everyone has to face in their life. People differ in coping with the grief of that loss and look for ways to come to terms with the new reality. It is important for the people left behind to embrace the absence of their loved ones, but in the new age of technology, this natural process of grieving seems to dwindle.

A Syria-based actress, Sirine Malas, found a new way to deal with this grief, when she lost her mother unexpectedly, as reported in SkyNews. She found solace in an AI-based bot system called Project December, which claims to “simulate the dead.”

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The results of the AI tool both gave her comfort, but also scared her for being 'too real' that it felt “spooky” at times.

Syrian woman chats to dead mother using AI tool, the results stunned her

Malas was separated from her mother Najah after fleeing her home country Syria to move to Germany in 2015. She gave birth to her daughter, Ischtar in Berlin, and ever since wanted her to meet her mother. But before they had a chance, her mother Najah died unexpectedly from kidney failure in 2018 at the age of 82.

The grief was unbearable, says Malas.

"You just want any outlet," she adds. "For all those emotions... if you leave it there, it just starts killing you, it starts choking you. I wanted that last chance (to speak to her)."

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After struggling to cope with the loss of her mother for four years, Malas turned to Project December. All she had to do was fill up a short online form with information about her mother, including her age, relationship and a quote from her.

All of Malas’ responses soon became the fodder for the AI chatbot powered by OpenAI’s GPT2 version (an early version of the large language model behind ChatGPT). The AI tool generated the profile of Malas’ mother based on the inputs given by her.

Models like these are typically trained on a vast array of books, articles and text from all over the internet to generate responses to questions in a manner similar to a word prediction tool.

At a cost of a mere $10, users can message the chatbot for about an hour.

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In Malas’ case, the results of using the chatbot were "spooky".

"There were moments that I felt were very real," she says. "There were also moments where I thought anyone could have answered that this way."

Imitating her mother, the messages from the chatbot referred to Malas by her pet name, which she had included in the online form, asked if she was eating well, and told her that she was watching her.

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Project December has more than 3,000 users, the majority of whom have used it to imitate a deceased loved one in conversation.

Jason Rohrer, the founder of the service, says users are typically people who have dealt with the sudden loss of a loved one.

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Though the Project December chatbot gave Malas some sort of closure she needed, she warned other people to use the tool cautiously.

"I can see people easily getting addicted to using it, getting disillusioned by it, wanting to believe it to the point where it can go bad.

Going through the natural process of grief is always better than coping through AI bots. In extreme cases, it is advisable to seek medical support or therapy.

(With inputs from agencies)