Overcoming Death?: Artificial Intelligence Used To ‘Communicate’ With Dead Loved Ones
How much would you pay to “speak” to a loved one who had passed away? Well, apparently there are companies out there willing to take your money in exchange for “large language models trained on the deceased’s speech patterns, chat logs and more” to communicate with you just like your loved one did in life. This creates the illusion that you’re “crossing the border between life and death.” What’s really behind this?
Well, The New York Times review of the documentary Eternal You, which shares the details of this new technology, put it this way, “Increasingly, we turn to A.I. to answer the sorts of questions and fulfill the kinds of longings that religion once solved.” And many people today “treat [AI] with veneration and a little fear, as if it is a god and not a creation.” The article concludes with this:
“Eternal You” isn’t really about overcoming death, as it turns out. In a wide-ranging and somewhat rambling manner, it is about humans’ desperation to find meaning in life wherever they can, and how companies are rushing to fill that gap and inspire almost religious devotion, even in the professionals making the tools. But it also feels like a warning: That’s not your loved one on the other end at all—and it’s not magic either.
This new technology will likely be popular. After all, people have tried to talk to the dead for millennia. There’s even an account in the Bible where King Saul disguises himself and seeks out a medium to call up the prophet Samuel from the dead so Saul can consult with him. Really, this is another version of that practice, just less occultic. But a similar heart is behind the desire to communicate with the dead, whether via the occult or through modern technology: the human desire to overcome death. But only Jesus, who is the resurrection and the life, can and did overcome death.
Now, I’ve always said that the answers are in Genesis 1–11. And you might wonder how a “modern” problem, like technology that mimics the communication style of someone who has passed away, finds its roots in Genesis. But yet again, it does!
You see, God created us for eternity, placing Adam and Eve in Eden with unfettered access to the tree of life. They would’ve lived forever if they’d chosen to obey God. But they chose rebellion, and their sin brought death, suffering, and sorrow into the world. Death is an enemy—we all feel that; we know death is horrible. And ever since the garden, humans have tried to cheat death in all kinds of ways. But “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). We’ve all sinned, and so we’ll all die (Romans 5:12).
The urge to commune with the dead is there because of the horror and seeming finality of death. We want to overcome it—to get around it somehow, someway. And yet we can’t; any attempt is a cheap counterfeit brought about by messing with the occult and demons or a slick computer program.
So what’s the answer to the human longing to beat death? Well, that answer begins in Genesis too! Right after Adam and Eve were handed the consequences for their sin, God promised a Savior who would someday come and crush the head of the wicked serpent (Genesis 3:15). That Savior would defeat death, not by delaying or momentarily “suspending” it (merely giving the illusion of defeating death) or through modern technology, but utterly crushing it—conquering it with his resurrection from the grave.
When Martha was mourning over the death of her brother, Lazarus, Jesus didn’t comfort her by giving her a message from “the other side.” He comforted her with these words, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25–26)
He then raised Lazarus back to life, showing his power over death. And that’s the same power Jesus again demonstrated when he took up his own life again after he had laid it down for us in his death on the cross.
For those of us who are in Christ, our eternity is secure. Even though we still physically die, we never truly die because we are more than just flesh and bones—our spirits, which will be raised with an imperishable body (1 Corinthians 15:53), are with Christ forever.
Gimmicks like chats with AI “loved ones” might provide some people a sense of temporary comfort (though they will likely create a whole host of problems!), but the only eternal comfort comes through Jesus Christ who freely offers life eternal to all who will turn from their sin and trust in him.
