CU Boulder researchers study ‘generative ghosts’

Would you talk to a deceased loved one using AI?

Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder are conducting the first user experience studies of “generative ghosts” — AI agents trained on data about the dead.

Their initial findings, published this month by the Association for Computing Machinery, offer the first scientific glimpse at how people use the emerging technology, what they want from it, and how it makes them feel.

“We originally thought it might feel very Black Mirror creepy to people and make them uncomfortable,” said Jack Manning, a PhD candidate in information science and the study’s first author. “I ended up being completely wrong. People thought it was amazing.”

Generative ghosts, sometimes called “griefbots” or “deathbots,” are fast becoming a commercial reality. Platforms like Project December and Séance AI use journal entries and social media posts from the deceased to train text-based ghosts for surviving loved ones to chat with. Companies like HereAfterAI invite users to submit voice recordings and photos of themselves while they’re alive to create ghosts for their loved ones to interact with after they’re gone. Some have even created fully immersive, virtual-reality options.

“We anticipate that within our lifetimes it may become common practice for people to create custom AI agents to interact with loved ones and the broader world after their death,” said Jed Brubaker, an associate professor of information science and senior author of the study.

But given their potential to both help and harm, Brubaker believes they should be designed with solid research as a guide.

For their inaugural study, the team recruited 16 people, ages 22 to 50, who had lost a close relative or friend.

Participants logged into Zoom for a brief on-camera interview with a facilitator, who gathered biographical information and other details about the deceased. Meanwhile, in the background, a second researcher plugged this information into a large language model, building a ghost in real time.

Participants chatted with two iterations, each for about 20 minutes. One ghost spoke in first person (“I remember going to the beach together.”) Another used third person. (“She loved going to the beach with you.”)

Subsequent interviews found that, across the board, participants preferred what the researchers called the “reincarnation” over the “representation.”

While people seemed willing to overlook occasional inaccuracies spun up by AI, they cringed if the bot used the wrong term of endearment. When the ghost of one participant’s stepfather called him “champ” — a term he would never have used — the participant nearly called off the session.

Users also preferred shorter sentences with emojis rather than the rambling paragraphs that AI tends to produce.

When participants were asked if they would use the technology again, everyone said yes. But some feared they would become overly reliant on it.

Manning said the results revealed a striking tension in how participants viewed the technology for themselves versus others.

“While a vast majority of participants said, ‘I would use this in my day to day. This was amazing. This was great.’ Those same people also mentioned that they wouldn’t recommend it for others,” Manning said. “We had multiple participants say, ‘Oh it’s fantastic for me but my brother should never use it.’ Or, ‘Oh I thought it was really great but my dad should never use this.'”

Manning, who lost his sister to a heart condition when they were children, says he sees both the promise and the peril of the technology. He hopes the research can inform thoughtful and sensitive design of future technologies.

“I think a lot about 11-year-old me. If I had access to ChatGPT and it started responding as my sister late at night without supervision…that is a very scary thought,” Manning said. “But as we have learned through this paper, it can also be an incredibly meaningful experience for people that enables them to get some closure and peace.”

Manning also sees potential benefits that extend beyond grief.

“For intergenerational storytelling. For maintaining family traditions, as time goes on as more and more of our records and lives become digitized. This is a great way to hear your great-grandma’s recipe in her own voice, in her own words. Hear that story from when you were a kid from a person who was there to experience it,” Manning said.

The lab has already begun its next studies, including one working with mental health professionals to analyze the benefits and risks of interacting with AI ghosts.

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