Grief 2.0: Keeping Dad Alive Through Artificial Immortality

At first glance, I thought this article was a geeky sci-fi type story about recreating humans after they die. But then I read it and realised it’s about much more than that. It is a beautifully documented quest by a son who tries to find a way to keep his dying father’s story alive.

The son, James Vlahos, is not just a coder but a talented storyteller too. Yes, he uses chatbot technology and artificial intelligence techniques to build the "Dadbot", but he also uses 91,970 transcribed words (or, as he describes in the piece: “203 single-spaced pages with 12-point Palatino type”) from over a dozen hours of interviews he recorded with his dad.

This piece reads like a diary:

“As my father declines, the Dadbot slowly improves. There is much more to do, but waiting for the prototype to be finished isn’t an option. I want to show it to my father, and I am running out of time.”

This is a journey into the unchartered territory of posthumous technology applications, but beyond that, a very personal journey into illness, physical and mental decline and, ultimately, grief.

This could be one of these stories that we’ll look back on a decade from now and recognise as a turning point in how we keep not just memories but personalities alive, long after they’ve gone.