Today, companies promise us that they can recreate our deceased mother, daughter, brother, father, or grandmother. In other words, they’ll create a digital avatar with whom you’ll be able to text, talk, see each other on video, and even meet in virtual reality. The death of a loved one affects us like few other things do. We miss their presence; we want to talk to them one last time, see them one last time, bring them joy, say what we didn’t get to say, or make amends for past wrongs—all to ease our conscience and know that everything is right between us and the deceased.
Funeral directors call it a “digital ghost.” All you have to do is fill out your personal information, upload photos, videos, or a voice recording, answer a few questions, share your social media profiles, and pay a few dollars. And just like that, after a few clicks, your loved one “comes back to life” and is here for us again. Is this science fiction, a dream, or reality? True innovation would be if we stopped fearing death so much and were able to say goodbye to our loved ones with peace and understanding. But no, we want to physically involve technology in it as well. Funeral director Oleg Vojtíšek, however, warns the bereaved against exactly this—he sees it every day in his practice: digital ghosts do more harm than good.