Can AI help with grief?

New technology allows us to download our thoughts and lessons. But can it really help control our legacy? Or soften the blow for those left behind?

• Courgettes (as many as you can be bothered to grate)

• Carrots (as many as you can be bothered to grate but only really necessary so as to make you feel  as if this is actually a proper dish and not just a cobbled together memory of a dish)

• Pasta (ideally shell-shaped, unless it gives you the ick) (plenty of it, much more than the amount Weight Watchers tricked you into thinking was a portion)

• Butter (couple of tablespoons)

• Garlic (enough so it slightly burns)

• Basil (if you’re feeling fancy)

• Onion (nice but not necessary) 

Put the pasta onto bowl. Plenty of salt in that water, mind. Fry up the grated courgette/carrots and garlic and basic, until warm and wilted. Mix all together with a shit ton of butter. If you want pop some parmesan on top. Serve. Eat. Keep some leftover so that you can stand by the pan at midnight, dropping cold buttery pasta into your mouth. Please resist the urge to feel slightly ashamed at this. You’re fine. You’re doing OK. This is pleasure. Enjoy it.

I first ate a variation of this pasta dish in Puglia. I saw fireflies on that trip, flickering in the dark night of the mountains. It had been my birthday; my mum had sent me out some presents to unwrap, including a silk bag with a wooden handle, a pelican embroidered on the front. That’s all I really remember from the week we spent there, but this recipe - cooked that first time by my friend’s dad - I’ve carried with me. 

It’s what I make when I’m too wired to sleep, too tired to think. When I have to “bring a dish.” My sister requests it when I go home. It’s ‘auntie Katie’s courgetty pasta.’

It’s nice but it isn’t spectacular. It is, somehow, a part of who I am.

If I die, is it how people will remember me? 

I ask, because recently I’ve been researching legacy. How technology/AI/robots can help us create the image of ourselves that we leave behind. They package it up and present ‘you’ to your grieving loved ones, so that they can pore over you, listen to your life’s stories, your life’s lessons… even all the recipes you’re known for… 

all for a small fee a month. 

That addition makes me sound cynical. Like I think these new apps (some of which go so far as to create an AI version of yourself, a ‘living’ hologram that can be visited and spoken to) are simply a way to make profit, leeching off the vulnerabilities of the grieving. People who would spend anything to see that person again. I do think that, it’s true. But I also think they can help, that they open up conversations and encourage us all to think about our life, our death and what - if anything - we want to leave behind. 

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

The apps, at their most basic level, serve prompts. The person who has decided to download their life, for whatever reason, answers them, like they’re recording a voice memo. 

• When life is overwhelming, I find it’s important to remember that… 

• A secret about my family that I’d like to share… 

• Here’s what I know about my ancestors… 

• The best party I ever went to was…

• When I was growing up, I wanted to be… 

• A way that being a parent changed me is… 

• My attitude about death is… 

• Here’s one of my favourite jokes… 

• A trait that has held me back in life is… 

Are these things that I’d want to leave behind? Are these things I’d like to know? 

As part of my research, I interviewed an end-of-life nurse who told me that she sits with her patients, and helps them capture themselves. Whether it’s letters for their children to open up on their birthdays or writing down the recipes they’d like to hand on, people are already doing what this technology provides. 

We all want to leave behind something, of ourselves, on this earth. Something solid. 

I think I’d like to sit and answer all of these questions. Ponder my life and distill it into something palatable. Craft a version of myself that allows me to tuck myself into my grave, pull the dirt all around me and think smugly ‘there, people will remember me right.’ 

This technology doesn’t just capitalise on grief, it capitalises on our egos.

But, that’s me being cynical again as… 

I think it could bring some peace. 

When someone is sick, dying, everything is so uncontrollable. Answering prompts, thinking about your legacy, it gives some control. It also provides some hope, some might say a false hope, that you’re making grief easier for the people you are leaving behind. You’re leaving a part of yourself that they can visit again and again. Whether it’s in a letter or an app it must be comforting to think ‘if my daughter faces heartbreak in the future she can turn to me, hear my advice’ or ‘on my son’s wedding day he can feel my presence.’ 

But it’s also taking a gamble on how other people’s lives might turn out. One of the prompts is: what parenting advice would you give? I like to think my mum wouldn’t answer that one, she wasn’t someone who put people in boxes. But my grandma would have. From always saying ‘grace’ to avoiding blue or green nail varnish I worked hard to keep her proud of me. I’d hate to hear her impart wisdom that, as a childfree person, I’d probably never use. I’d feel I’d let her down somehow, even if that was never her intention. There’s also the risk that you’re creating a persona of yourself that they could get stuck beside, never trying or feeling the need to keep going with their life. Just living with a robotic relative, playing them on loop. 

Because, the truth is, we can’t control grief. We can’t manipulate it, or soften it, or make it easier. We don’t get to decide how other people remember us. Sometimes even they don’t have that control. I couldn’t remember happy memories of my mum for years, no matter how hard I tried to twist and mould my brain matter. I don’t think, even if she had transferred herself into coding, I would have been able to use a tool to bring her happy, humming self back to me. I had to protect myself. 

What we can control - and God I hate it when I veer into cliche - is how we exist now. (hey, cliches are often there because they’re so true.) The nurse I spoke to told me that the dying almost always have the same regrets: they wish they’d imparted these lessons earlier. I think it would be too simplistic to say “so go off, have those hard chats now before it’s too late.” It’s a bit blah, it doesn’t take in the realities of why we so often don’t have these conversations. It’s a lot easier to hand over a recipe than, say, your “biggest family secret.” 

But it is worth bearing in mind, thinking about the things you don’t know but would like to, and asking. I recently asked my dad about the Persian rugs that line her living room, we’ve had them in every house and I wondered what they meant to her.

It turns out, the rugs have a story, one to do with my ancestors… or is it a trip my dad and mum took? The symbols on them spell something out, something vital about my history. Something I cannot remember.

But I’m not going to ask her to record that story. As, what I can remember, is her stepping onto the rug, almost as if she was stepping into the patterns of it, as she hopped about, her face animated and telling the story. Because often it’s not the question or the prompt or the recipe that’s cemented within: it’s the moments that follow, how you felt in that second, in their company, that creates the true legacy. 

What do you think? Is there anything you wished you knew about the people you have lost? Questions you wish you’d asked them? Or, what wisdom do you want to pass on? Let me know in the comments!

PS: all this research was done for this piece in Women’s Health, which is also available to read in the current issue, with Gaby Roslin on the front. I interviewed experts and truly dig into whether this tech could help or hinder grief, it was so interesting and (I think) worth a read.

PPS: couldn’t resist answering the prompts…

When life is overwhelming, I find it’s important to remember that… 

I look back at a time when life was overwhelming before, struggling often to remember the details. Or, if I can remember the details, I then focus on what happened next, how it passed. ‘This too shall pass’ is both true, and irritating, so reminding myself of times it has passed can help. Either that or I put on Friends repeats until I can sleep. 

A secret about my family that I’d like to share… 

All I want now is to become a hacker so I can hack into the technology and listen to how other people answered this one! I can’t think of any family secrets (maybe I’ve not been told them!) 

Here’s what I know about my ancestors… 

I’ve never had much desire to create a family tree, so I know very little (saying that I went to an event with ancestry.com recently and was tempted) and I know whatever I type here and can remember my dad will read and say “you remembered that wrong” but… here goes… I know that my dad’s family were in the pottery business, and, oh god, maybe I should join ancestry.com… 

The best party I ever went to was…

In my final year of university I won a competition to go to the How To Lose Friends and Alienate People premiere, and part of that was going to the after party at Shoreditch House. They filled the swimming pool with flowers, just like in the movie. There was a floor with table piled high with food. We sat by the pool, under shimmering light, and spoke to an actual movie star (Chris O Dowd) for ages. He seemed to like talking to us! Before we left we jumped into the pool, and waded through the flowers, just like Megan Fox in the movie! We lived within the delusion that, in that moment, we looked just like her. We felt we’d had a taste of what our life would look like, from then on, as we would move to London and work as journalists… We did do that. But I’ve never been invited to an after party like that since. I think the money dried up (or I’m just not considered cool enough.) 

When I was growing up, I wanted to be… 

A ballet dancer. Eventually I was told I wasn’t ‘built’ for it (which resulted in a good life lesson, by the way) 

A way that being a parent changed me is… 

Umm, see above. 

My attitude about death is… 

There’s very likely going to be an adventure after it. That helps me both feel at peace with it, but also I love to think of people I have lost on said adventure.

I also try to use it to check in with myself, I knew I would be disappointed if I died before seeing New York, as it had always been my dream since I was little, so - as soon as I could afford it - I booked flights there. I try to do that every now and then, it’s too hard to actually ‘live each day as if it’s your last’ but I’ve found having a slightly fatalistic attitude to life and being witness to how easily it can all end has helped me achieve the things I want to achieve. 

Here’s one of my favourite jokes… 

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Doctor.

Doctor Who.

You just said it! 

I remember making this joke up when I was little (but I also thought I made up the song ‘Hit the Road Jack’ so who knows) and my humour has not progressed since. 

A trait that has held me back in life is…

I thought I was ugly and unattractive for a long time and it’s warped my perception, even know, of not only how I’m perceived but also who deserves my attention, presence and time. There’s a part of me that will always want to impress bullies… and that has caused me to pour energy into people and ambitions that don’t matter.