NEVER SAY GOODBYE; The New York Times, June 13, 2025

Susan Dominus ; Videos by Singeli Agnew, The New York Times; NEVER SAY GOODBYE
"StoryFile frequently works with foundations and museums, but it has already made interactive videos for several individual clients. In the future, the company intends to release a generative-A.I. app in which customers can create avatars that answer questions not provided in advance, by uploading a person’s emails, social media posts and other background material.
Matt and Joan preferred what they signed up for, which would be an avatar of Peter who answered only the questions that were posed while he was alive. Everything he said, they would know, was something he believed to be true, rather than an extrapolation. “It won’t change the reality that I’ve lost my father,” Matt said. “But it lessens the blow ever so slightly, knowing that when he does die, it won’t be the last time I’ll ever have a conversation with him.”...
Matt felt a tension between being moved by how real the experience felt yet also being reminded that it was a rendering. ...“It was a reminder that this is a human I love that I want to console. But you can’t console a video clip.”

Leaving Your Legacy Via Death Bots? Ethicist Shares Concerns; Medscape, August 21, 2024

Arthur L. Caplan, PhD, Medscape ; Leaving Your Legacy Via Death Bots? Ethicist Shares Concerns

"On the other hand, there are clearly many ethical issues about creating an artificial version of yourself. One obvious issue is how accurate this AI version of you will be if the death bot can create information that sounds like you, but really isn't what you would have said, despite the effort to glean it from recordings and past information about you. Is it all right if people wander from the truth in trying to interact with someone who's died? 

There are other ways to leave memories behind. You certainly can record messages so that you can control the content. Many people video themselves and so on. There are obviously people who would say that they have a diary or have written information they can leave behind. 

Is there a place in terms of accuracy for a kind of artificial version of ourselves to go on forever? Another interesting issue is who controls that. Can you add to it after your death? Can information be shared about you with third parties who don't sign up for the service? Maybe the police take an interest in how you died. You can imagine many scenarios where questions might come up about wanting to access these data that the artificial agent is providing. 

Some people might say that it's just not the way to grieve.Maybe the best way to grieve is to accept death and not try to interact with a constructed version of yourself once you've passed. That isn't really accepting death. It's a form, perhaps, of denial of death, and maybe that isn't going to be good for the mental health of survivors who really have not come to terms with the fact that someone has passed on."

The Bad Parent Caucus; New York Times, February 15, 2018

Timothy Egan, New York Times; The Bad Parent Caucus

"Let me try another take for you bad parents in office. Pretend you live in a pleasant, well-protected community of like-minded people, and you’re in charge. O.K., you don’t have to pretend. And let’s say there was a natural gas leak every three days in one of the homes in that community, a leak that killed entire families.

Your response would be to pray and do nothing. Or to pray and talk about everything except the gas leak. Or to pray and say you’re powerless to act because the gas company owns you. The response of those suffering would be to take control and kick you out. That’s what we have to do, and will, next November."