Legacy dot com AI chat feature

In the past few years, I’ve lost some close family members. This is always an emotionally challenging experience, but at the same time, if someone is suffering at the end it can be a relief for them to pass on.

Obituaries are strange to me. Trying to sum up someone’s life in a few sentences seems like it would be hard to do well. However, it’s a longstanding tradition, and I’m sure it is helpful if you want to locate estranged family or friends. There’s a site called legacy dot com where you can look up obituaries (a follower made me aware of this, they’re not sponsoring me lol).

The biggest button on an obituary right now is to send flowers. I did not click the button but I do wonder… who are these flowers going to?

Anyways, given the advancements of generative AI, the reduced cost to compute, and the treasure trove of data we have on many people now… what if there was an option to chat with the deceased?

This is a bit unhinged, as I’m sure the AI would sometimes hallucinate and say weird or untrue things. It also feels quite bleak if this is someone you’re close to. Talking with a computer’s approximation of a person feels wrong. However, I’m sure we’ll see some version of this in the years to come

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