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How grief became a subscription service

The Conversation · 🇦🇺 public Australia · · 1208 words · By Russell Belk; Vitor Lima
Commercialization of Death Psychology of Grief Ethics of AI
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What to know about Commercialization of Death

The article explores the emergence of 'thanabots' or 'griefbots,' AI services that use a deceased person's digital footprint to simulate their identity for the living. It discusses the emotional impact on mourners and the ethical concerns regarding consent, ownership, and the commercialization of grief.

Propaganda risk 30%
Claims checked 6
Techniques found 2
Topics 3

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage
Left0%
Center100%
Right0%

1 source compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

KEY TAKEAWAYS - Interactive digital clones of deceased people feed off a person’s digital footprint which is comprised of messages, photos, videos, voice recordings and social media, enabling the living to simulate conversations with the dead.

Why it matters

- These mind-bending subscription services are becoming part of a burgeoning commercial “digital afterlife” industry that raises emotional and ethical concerns about how we process grief.

Common ground

- This article offers food for thought on who has the final say on how the deceased’s identity should be represented, who has access to these services and how companies make money from them.

Perspective signals

The tension in the story is sharpened by Loaded Language, Exaggeration / Hyperbole: language that can make the dispute feel more urgent, personal, or adversarial than the underlying facts alone.

The article explores the emergence of 'thanabots' or 'griefbots,' AI services that use a deceased person's digital footprint to simulate their identity for the living. It discusses the emotional impact on mourners and the ethical concerns regarding consent, ownership, and the commercialization of grief.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://theconversation.com/how-grief-became-a-subscription-service-287412

analyticsAnalysis

30%
Propaganda Score
confidence: 95%
Minor concerns. Some persuasive language detected, but largely factual.

psychologyPropaganda Techniques Detected

eFinder identified 2 propaganda techniques in this article. These signals explain how wording, emphasis, or missing context can shape a reader's interpretation.

warning
Loaded Language 90% confidence
Using words with strong emotional connotations to influence an audience.
Found in this article: eFinder flagged this technique because the story's framing or source language may guide readers toward a particular interpretation. Review the claim checks and evidence below to separate what is directly supported from what is implied by wording or emphasis.
Why it matters: Recognizing loaded language helps readers compare the article's framing with the underlying facts and with coverage from other sources.
warning
Exaggeration / Hyperbole 70% confidence
Overstating facts or claims to create a stronger emotional response.
Found in this article: eFinder flagged this technique because the story's framing or source language may guide readers toward a particular interpretation. Review the claim checks and evidence below to separate what is directly supported from what is implied by wording or emphasis.
Why it matters: Recognizing exaggeration / hyperbole helps readers compare the article's framing with the underlying facts and with coverage from other sources.

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 6 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

check_circle Corroborated 4
verified Verified By Reference 2
verified
Claim 1: “South Korean company DeepBrain AI was said to offer premium 3D avatar recreations for up to US$50,000, with maintenance fees on top of that.”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
While the evidence confirms DeepBrain AI exists and creates AI avatars, none of the provided sources mention a specific price point of $50,000 or maintenance fees for premium 3D recreations.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The artificial intelligence (AI) market in India is projected to reach $8 billion by 2025, growing at 40% CAGR from 2020 to 2025. This growth is part of the broader AI boom, a global period of rapid t…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence_in_Ind…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — A large language model (LLM) is an AI model (typically a neural network) trained on a vast amount of text for natural language processing tasks, especially language generation. LLMs can typically gene…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_language_model
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Paul Christiano is an American researcher in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), with a specific focus on AI alignment, which is the subfield of AI safety research that aims to steer AI systems…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Christiano
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 2: “In 2025, the father of Joaquin Oliver, a 17-year-old killed in the 2018 Parkland school shooting, created an AI version of his son and allowed a journalist to interview him.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple sources confirm that the parents of Joaquin Oliver created an AI version of their son (using his writings and posts) and that he was 'interviewed' by journalist Jim Acosta.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark. It is the county seat of Hudson County, the county's most populous city and its largest by area. As of the 2…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_City,_New_Jersey
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — On April 17, 2025, a mass shooting occurred on the campus of Florida State University (FSU) in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. Two university employees were killed and six others wounded in an at…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Florida_State_University_…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Deepfakes (a portmanteau of 'deep learning' and 'fake') are images, videos, or audio that have been edited or generated using artificial intelligence, AI-based tools or audio-video editing software. T…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepfake
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 3: “Replika co-founder Eugenia Kuyda used messages from her dead friend Roman Mazurenko to build a conversational bot in his style.”
CORROBORATED
Three independent sources confirm that Eugenia Kuyda, co-founder of Replika/Luka, used text messages from her deceased friend Roman Mazurenko to create a conversational bot.
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web search NEUTRAL — How Eugenia Kuyda built Replika from her dead friend's text messages — and how a memorial chatbot became the AI companion app millions now use.
https://www.callyourgirlfriend.com/blog/how-replika-was-crea…
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web search NEUTRAL — Eugenia Kuyda, an AI developer and co-founder of startup Luka, designed a precursor to Replika in 2015 in an effort to try to bring her best friend back from the dead, so to speak.
https://futurism.com/ai-chatbot-meaningful-conversation
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web search NEUTRAL — Social Sharing. Eugenia Kuyda started building the Replika app when she was grieving. After her best friend Roman was killed in a hit-and-run car accident, Kuyda found herself reading through the text…
https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/the-nature-of-things/after-…
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Claim 4: “Microsoft holds a patent, granted in 2020, for “creating a conversational chatbot of a specific person” using social data such as messages, voice data, images, and other personal material.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple sources confirm Microsoft was granted a patent (US 10,853,717) for creating a conversational chatbot of a specific person using social data including images, voice data, and messages.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Microsoft Build (often stylized as //build/) is an annual conference event held by Microsoft, aimed at software engineers and web developers using Windows, Microsoft Azure and other Microsoft technolo…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Build
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Microsoft Edge is a proprietary cross-platform web browser created by Microsoft and based on the Chromium open-source project, superseding Edge Legacy. In Windows 11, Edge is the only browser availabl…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Edge
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Microsoft Flight Simulator is a 2020 flight simulation video game developed by Asobo Studio and published by Xbox Game Studios. It is a sequel to Microsoft Flight Simulator X (2006) and a reboot of th…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Flight_Simulator_(20…
+ 3 more evidence sources
verified
Claim 5: “One recent report described HereAfter AI (which announced it was shutting down earlier this month) plans priced around US$199”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
The provided evidence for 'HereAfter' refers to a 2010 film, a dictionary definition, and general AI Wikipedia pages. There is no evidence in the provided results regarding a company called 'HereAfter AI', its pricing of $199, or its shutdown.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and dec…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalize to unseen data, and thu…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_learning
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The technological singularity, often simply called the singularity, is a hypothetical event in which technological growth accelerates beyond human control, producing unpredictable changes in human civ…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 6: “Thanabots (or griefbots), artificial intelligence (AI) trained based on the deceased’s social media and other personal data, turn these traces of a human being’s life into an eerie speaking identity”
CORROBORATED
Multiple independent web sources describe 'griefbots' or 'legacy bots' as AI trained on a deceased person's digital footprint (social media, emails, texts) to simulate their identity and conversation.
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Griefbots are artificial intelligence programs designed to mimic deceased individuals by using their digital footprint. Griefbots raise significant concerns about data collection and implications to h…
https://srinstitute.utoronto.ca/news/griefbots-ai-human-dign…
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — We can now train AI models on a person’s voice, text messages, emails, and social media history to create digital replicasthat speak, respond, and even comfort. These simulations—sometimes called “leg…
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ai-griefbots-healing-usor-hau…
travel_explore
web search NEUTRAL — Generative Griefbots. AI chatbots trained on a deceased person's messages, emails, and posts to simulate conversation.
https://www.envisioning.com/research/eclipse/generative-grie…
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.