Woman ‘chats’ to dead mother using AI – with ‘spooky’ results
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.
Sirine’s mother Najah
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.
Sirine and her daughter Ischtar
“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.
Sirine says her mother was the ‘guiding force’ in her life
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.”
Sirine’s mother and father
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.
Jason Rohrer founded Project December
“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.”
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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.”
Therapist Billie Dunlevy
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.
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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.”
Banned from Eurovision after its invasion of Ukraine, Russia will hold a rival international song contest on Saturday, with an emphasis on “traditional values”.
Instead of camp, think conservative – patriotic pop with a PG-rating.
“Intervision” was launched under the order of Vladimir Putin, with the hope it would serve as an expression of Moscow’s international pulling power.
Intervision decorations in Red Square, Moscow, ahead of the contest
There are contestants from 23 countries, which are a mixture of Russia’s allies old and new, including Belarus, Cuba and Tajikistan as well as China, India and Saudi Arabia.
The odd one out is the United States, who’ll be represented by an artist called “Vassy”. She’s not part of an official delegation, but an American voice is still a coup for the Kremlin, which will seek to use this contest as proof of the West’s failure to isolate Russia on the global stage.
‘War whitewash’
Intervision is not entirely new. It was originally launched in the 1960s as an instrument of Soviet soft power, before largely fading from view in the 1980s.
According to Moscow, its revival has nothing to do with politics. But Ukraine has condemned it as propaganda, and an attempt to whitewash Russia’s war.
It was a point I put to some contestants after their final press conferences, but it didn’t go down well.
“We don’t think like that, we are here to spread peace,” India’s Rauhan Malik told me, when I asked if his participation was a show of support for Russia’s invasion.
Malik, one of the contestants
“Are you not turning a blind eye to Russia’s aggression?” I countered.
“I have no idea about it,” he said. “I have no idea about the current situation that’s happening. I don’t want to speak about that as well.”
Eurovision legends Abba would almost certainly not make the Russian contest guest list. Pic: AP
Really? He had no idea? But before I could go on, I felt a forceful hand on my shoulder and a minder stepped in.
The intervention was even quicker when it came to speaking to Brazil’s act. As soon as I mentioned the word Ukraine, I was drowned out by shouts of “no, no, no, no” and the duo were ushered away.
Brazilian contestants, duo Luciano Calazans and Thais Nader
Where’s the glitter?
Intervision is not just a reaction to Russia’s recent exclusion from Eurosivion, however, it’s also a reaction to the contest’s values and what it’s come to represent.
Its celebration of sexual diversity and LGBTQ+ rights are seen as a symbol of what the Kremlin calls the West’s moral decline. In contrast, Intervision organisers say their contest will promote “traditional, family values.”
Judging by the costumes on show ahead of last week’s draw, that translates to less glitter, more embroidery, with a thematic emphasis on national heritage.
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So what do Russians think of Intervision’s resurrection? Can it replace Eurovision?
“We don’t miss Eurovision,” Galina and Tatiana say, underneath a collection of purple and pink ‘Intervision’ flags near Red Square.
“It was so horrible, especially lately. We didn’t like watching it at all.”
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Why are countries boycotting Eurovision?
Polina agrees, believing Russia’s version will be “more interesting”.
“Many countries that participated in Eurovision want to boycott it, so it’s interesting to see a more peaceful event now,” she says.
Igor is more circumspect. “I’d like to believe that this isn’t a political event,” he says, “but rather an event that unites nations and people.”
Intervision will succeed in uniting some nations. But at the same time, it may only deepen divisions with others – further evidence that Russia and the West are singing very different tunes.
Donald Trump will introduce a new $100,000 application fee for foreign worker visas.
A White House official said the US President is preparing to sign a proclamation today that will require a $100,000 application fee for H-1B visa, which covers highly-skilled foreign workers.
The charge is part of a broader immigration crackdown.
H-1B visas are meant to bring the best and brightest foreigners for high-skilled jobs that tech companies find difficult to fill with qualified Americans and other permanent residents.
The programme has drawn criticism for becoming a pipeline for overseas workers who are often willing to work for wages lower than those typically paid to US technology workers. Critics also argue that companies use H-1B visas to overlook Americans for jobs.
First lady Melania Trump, the former Melania Knauss, was granted an H1-B work visa in October 1996 to work as a model. She was born in Slovenia.
What is a H-1B visa?
The H-1B programme has been crucial for technology and staffing companies who rely on foreign workers.
Historically, these visas – 85,000 per year – have been doled out through a lottery system.
Donald Trump will introduce the charge as part of an immigration crackdown
India, the largest beneficiary of H-1B visas last year, accounted for 71% of approved beneficiaries.
China was second with 11.7%, according to government data.
Shares of IT services company, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp, fell by over 5% on Friday.
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