Woman encounters 'spooky results' after chatting to dead mother using AI

A woman had “chats” with her dead mother using AI and some “spooky” results came out of it.

The limits of the capabilities of artificial intelligence are scarcely known, as the technology continues to develop at incredible speed. The tech has been used to create harmful deepfakes and can even find every picture of you that exists on the internet.

While some of its capabilities undoubtedly cause harm, one woman has used the tech to try to cope with the grief of losing her mother.

Actress Sirine Malas left her home country of Syria to move to Germany in 2015. In 2018, before her mother Najah could meet her new baby, she died from kidney failure.

Malas explained to Sky News: “The whole thing was cruel because it happened suddenly. I really, really wanted her to meet my daughter and I wanted to have that last reunion.”

She searched for an outlet for her grief and turned to Project December – an AI tool that was designed to “simulate the dead”.

To use the tool, users complete a form about the deceased person. It includes information about them and their relationship, including quotes that the person had said.

An AI chatbot, powered by OpenAI's GPT2, creates a profile of the person based on the information fed to it.

Malas was able to “chat” with her mother Najah with the chatbot, giving responses that it assessed she would likely give, reassuring her that she was “ready” to go and that she was “the breeze that blows when you want it to”.

The results were “spooky”, Malas explained. The chatbot referred to her by the pet name her mother used to call her, which she had put into the information form.

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

Project December costs $10 (approximately £7.80) and users can message with the chatbot for an hour.

“I am a bit of a spiritual person and I felt that this is a vehicle,” Sirine said.

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