World

Woman ‘chats’ to dead mother using AI – with ‘spooky’ results

Published

1 year ago

March 12, 2024

admin

After her mother’s death, Sirine Malas was desperate for an outlet for her grief.

“When you’re weak, you accept anything,” she says.

The actress was separated from her mother Najah after fleeing Syria, their home country, to move to Germany in 2015.

In Berlin, Sirine gave birth to her first child – a daughter called Ischtar – and she wanted more than anything for her mother to meet her. But before they had chance, tragedy struck.

Najah died unexpectedly from kidney failure in 2018 at the age of 82.

“She was a guiding force in my life,” Sirine says of her mother. “She taught me how to love myself.

“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.”

The grief was unbearable, says Sirine.

“You just want any outlet,” she adds. “For all those emotions… if you leave it there, it just starts killing you, it starts choking you.

“I wanted that last chance (to speak to her).”

After four years of struggling to process her loss, Sirine turned to Project December, an AI tool that claims to “simulate the dead”.

Users fill in a short online form with information about the person they’ve lost, including their age, relationship to the user and a quote from the person.

The responses are then fed into an AI chatbot powered by OpenAI’s GPT2, an early version of the large language model behind ChatGPT. This generates a profile based on the user’s memory of the deceased person.

Such models are typically trained on a vast array of books, articles and text from all over the internet to generate responses to questions in a manner similar to a word prediction tool. The responses are not based on factual accuracy.

At a cost of $10 (about £7.80), users can message the chatbot for about an hour.

For Sirine, the results of using the chatbot were “spooky”.

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

Imitating her mother, the messages from the chatbot referred to Sirine by her pet name – which she had included in the online form – asked if she was eating well, and told her that she was watching her.

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

“My mum could drop a few words in telling me that it’s really me or it’s just someone pretending to be me – I would be able to tell. And I think there were moments like that.”

Project December has more than 3,000 users, the majority of whom have used it to imitate a deceased loved one in conversation.

Jason Rohrer, the founder of the service, says users are typically people who have dealt with the sudden loss of a loved one.

“Most people who use Project December for this purpose have their final conversation with this dead loved one in a simulated way and then move on,” he says.

“I mean, there are very few customers who keep coming back and keep the person alive.”

He says there isn’t much evidence that people get “hooked” on the tool and struggle to let go.

However, there are concerns that such tools could interrupt the natural process of grieving.

Billie Dunlevy, a therapist accredited by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, says: “The majority of grief therapy is about learning to come to terms with the absence – learning to recognise the new reality or the new normal… so this could interrupt that.”

? Listen above then tap here to follow the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts ?

In the aftermath of grief, some people retreat and become isolated, the therapist says.

She adds: “You get this vulnerability coupled with this potential power to sort of create this ghost version of a lost parent or a lost child or lost friends.

“And that could be really detrimental to people actually moving on through grief and getting better.”

There are currently no specific regulations governing the use of AI technology to imitate the dead.

The world’s first comprehensive legal framework on AI is passing through the final stages of the European parliament before it is passed into law, when it would enforce regulations based on the level of risk posed by different uses of AI.

The Project December chatbot gave Sirine some of the closure she needed, but she warned bereaved people to tread carefully.

“It’s very useful and it’s very revolutionary,” she says.

“I was very careful not to get too caught up with it.

“I can see people easily getting addicted to using it, getting disillusioned by it, wanting to believe it to the point where it can go bad.

“I wouldn’t recommend people getting too attached to something like that because it could be dangerous.”

World

Why Ukraine’s European allies will be nervously watching VE Day events in Red Square

Published

5 hours ago

May 9, 2025

admin

Why Ukraine's European allies will be nervously watching VE Day events in Red Square

Donald Trump has a soft spot for military spectacles and autocrats.

He will be looking on with envy as Vladimir Putin parades both in Moscow today, with Chinese leader Xi Jinping flying in to join Victory Day events in Red Square.

European allies of Ukraine will be watching nervously, wary of anything that could upturn the delicate quest for peace.

President Trump‘s patience with peddling his much vaunted “peace deal” has been wearing thin and allies had feared Ukraine could be punished for it.

That would have been grotesquely unfair, of course. Ukraine has bent over backwards to accommodate Mr Trump’s one-sided diplomacy that has so far seemed to favour the aggressor in this obscene war.

True, the Trump proposal does not agree to Russian annexation of all the land already taken by force and stops short of ordering the complete demilitarisation of Ukraine, but otherwise the proposals are pretty much everything that Moscow has asked for.

The deal is being pushed by Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump’s golf partner turned chief negotiator, a man regarded by diplomats as out of his depth and lost in the rough when it comes to the arts of statecraft.

Like his president, Mr Witkoff has a history of doing business with Russian oligarchs, an apparently starry-eyed view of the Russian leader and has called Ukraine a “false country”.

Moment of truth approaching

Mr Witkoff and Mr Trump have so far given Mr Putin the benefit of the doubt, but a moment of truth is approaching. While Ukraine has agreed to a longer ceasefire in principle, Mr Putin will not.

Ukraine’s European allies feared that Mr Trump was about to despair of progress, blame Ukraine and take US military support with him.

Then came the minerals agreement between the US and Ukraine. The breakthrough gave the US president something to show for his efforts and assuaged his desire for some kind of deal. He seems to have moved on for now, at least, and approved the first $50m of arms sales to Ukraine.

But these remain a tense few days ahead with plenty at stake.

Mr Putin’s self-declared three-day ceasefire raises the spectre paradoxically of escalation if either side breaks it.

The Russian lull is seen here in Kyiv as little more than a ploy.

If the Russian leader was serious about giving peace a chance, they say, he would have signed up to the permanent ceasefire being proposed by the Trump team.

Besides, Russia broke the last truce in Easter as soon as it had begun and used it to carry out surveillance and reinforcement operations says Kyiv. Why risk another pointless pause that is exploited by the invaders?

Escalation possible

If Russia plays the same games this time and Ukraine retaliates, there could be a significant escalation. Likewise, with any Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow during Victory Day.

Any major flare-up will not be looked on favourably by the US president if it upstages his first trip abroad this presidency, a three-day tour of the Middle East.

For now, his attention is not so much on the Ukraine conflict and he is no longer issuing threats to walk away and stop supporting the Ukrainians.

That will be a relief here in the Ukrainian capital. They would be unwise to do anything to reengage him, for now at least.

Their European allies, though, know American involvement in this war appears to be receding.

Can they fill the vacuum?

This week, they remember the sacrifices made to bring peace and security to their continent 80 years ago.

Can they find the political will and unity to do so again, even without America?

Astonishingly, given all we have been through, that is still an open question.

World

India will respond ‘in exactly the same light’ if Pakistan retaliates, high commissioner tells Sky News

Published

5 hours ago

May 9, 2025

admin

India will respond 'in exactly the same light' if Pakistan retaliates, high commissioner tells Sky News

India will respond to any escalation from Pakistan “proportionally and in exactly the same light”, the country’s high commissioner has told Sky News.

Weeks after 26 tourists were shot dead by gunmen in Indian-controlled Kashmir last month, India carried out missile strikes in Pakistan and Islamabad-administered parts of the disputed region.

On Wednesday, India said it hit nine “terrorist infrastructure” sites, while Pakistan said it was not involved in the April attack and the sites were not militant bases.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has since vowed that India will “now have to pay the price” for their “blatant mistake,” and skirmishes have also been reported along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

👉Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim on your podcast app👈

Speaking to Sky’s The World with Yalda Hakim on Thursday, India’s high commissioner to the UK, Vikram Doraiswami, said “the original escalation is Pakistan’s sponsored terror groups’ attack on civilians”.

India strikes ‘reasonable,’ says high commissioner

He then insisted India’s strikes in Pakistan and Kashmir were “precise, targeted, reasonable and moderate,” adding: “It was focused principally and solely on terrorist infrastructure.

“We made it abundantly clear that the object of this exercise was clearly to avoid military escalation.

“A fact that was actually acknowledged – in a left-handed way of course – by the Pakistani side in terms of their own statements, which said the airspace hadn’t been violated.”

Pakistan chose ‘to escalate the matter’

The high commissioner also said about claims Pakistan shot down Indian aircraft with Chinese-made fighter jets: “If it satisfies Pakistan’s ego to say that they’ve done something, they could have used that as an off-ramp to move on.

“Clearly they’ve chosen not to, and they’ve chosen to escalate the matter.”

And when asked about Pakistan’s threats of retaliation, Mr Doraiswami said: “We’re not looking for an escalation, but if Pakistan responds, as we have done, we will respond proportionally and in exactly the same light.”

He then referenced the border skirmishes, saying: “I do want to remind everybody: For the last 15 days, they’ve also opened artillery fire along the Line of Actual Control… That’s led to civilian casualties.”

It comes after India said Pakistan attacked its military stations in the Kashmir region with drones and missiles on Thursday.

The country’s defence ministry said stations at Jammu, Pathankot and Udhampur were “targeted by Pakistani-origin” weapons, and added “the threats were swiftly neutralised”.

World

The demands and challenges facing the new pope

Published

5 hours ago

May 9, 2025

admin

The demands and challenges facing the new pope

There is a long list of demands in the new pope’s in-tray, ranging from the position of women in the church to the ongoing fight against sexual abuse and restoring papal finances.

People both inside the Catholic Church and around the world will be watching how the new pontiff deals with them.

US Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was elected as the new pope on Thursday after just two days of conclave.

The 69-year-old, who becomes the first American pope, will take the name Leo XIV.

On Friday, Pope Leo will lead his first holy mass as pontiff after already paying a surprise visit to see staff at his former residence.

Here, Sky News Europe correspondent Siobhan Robbins takes an in-depth look at the challenges facing the new pontiff.

Sexual abuse

Many Catholic insiders credit Pope Francis with going further than any of his predecessors to address sexual abuse.

He gathered bishops together for a conference on the issue in 2019 and that led to a change that allows cooperating with civil courts if needed during abuse cases.

But it didn’t go as far as forcing the disclosure of all information gathered in relation to child abuse.

Any abuse allegations must now be referred to church leaders, but reformers stopped short of decreeing that such cases should also be automatically referred to the police.

While many abuse victims agree they saw progress under Pope Francis, who spent a lot of time listening to their accounts, they say reforms didn’t go far enough.

The next pope will be under pressure to take strong action on the issue.

Women

Pope Francis also did more to promote women in the Vatican than any other pontiff.

Two years ago, he allowed women to vote in a significant meeting of bishops.

While he was clear he wanted women to have more opportunities, he resisted the idea that they needed to be part of the church hierarchy and didn’t change the rules on women being ordained.

His successor will need to decide if they push this agenda forward or rein it back in.

It’s a pressing concern as women do a huge amount of the work in schools and hospitals, but many are frustrated about being treated as second-class citizens. 10,000 nuns a year have left in the decade from 2012 to 2022, according to Vatican figures.

Inclusion

“Who am I to judge?” Pope Francis famously said when asked about a gay monsignor in 2013.

His supporters say he sought to make the church more open, including allowing blessings for same sex couples but while critics argue he didn’t go far enough, some conservatives were outraged.

African bishops collectively rejected blessings for same sex couples, saying “it would cause confusion and would be in direct contradiction to the cultural ethos of African communities”.

How welcome LGBTQ+ people feel in the church will depend partly on decisions made by the pontiff.

Conversely, the Pope must also bring together disparate groups within the Catholic faith.

Many are demanding a leader who can unite the various factions and bring stability in an increasingly unstable world.

The global south

While the Catholic church is losing members in its traditional base of Europe, it’s growing rapidly in the global south.

The area has become the new centre of gravity for Catholicism with huge followings in countries like Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines.

Pope Francis tried to expand representation by appointing more cardinals from different areas of the world, and the new Pope will be expected to continue this.