Simulacral presences: understanding griefbot-mediated mourning and associated ethical concerns

Griefbots, i.e. AI-enabled chatbots simulating two-way interactions with the deceased, are recent technological interventions in mourning practices. While griefbots can support mourning by externalising the bereaved’s imaginal relationships with their deceased loved ones, their dynamic interactivity also makes them capable of turning into self-referential simulacra, allowing for a functional and ontological substitution of the deceased in place of recollection respectful of their alterity. In this paper, we first discuss this concern as the ‘replacement problem’, whereby griefbots may ironically circumvent rather than facilitate mourning understood as the mourners’ ethical duty to the deceased. We then employ Jean Baudrillard’s theory of simulation, specifically the four stages of an image’s evolution from a faithful reflection to pure simulacrum, to trace the recollection to replacement arc in mourning. We illustrate these stages through different technologies of remembrance, positioning griefbots in the final stages. Finally, we engage Nina Schuyler’s speculative novel Afterword as a critical resource for examining griefbots’ potential for replacement through their function as high-order simulacra. Thus, this paper delineates an unsettling, yet plausible trajectory of griefbot-mediated mourning, and thereby emphasises the imperative of sustained critical attention to the further development, deployment, and use of griefbots.