If your loved one dies, would it be prudentially or ethically good or bad to have a chat-bot replica of them created for you to interact with?
If this topic interests you – or if it sounds like a cool class topic for a class you are teaching – please check out Alexis Elder’s interesting paper “Conversations from Beyond the Grave? A Neo-Confucian Ethics of Chatbots of the Dead,” and come back to join the discussion of the paper that will start on Monday, Jan. 27th. Erica and Ryan Preston-Roedder will kick things off with a precis and you are invited to add your questions and comments then.
If you have not seen it, the Black Mirror episode “Be Right Back” (season 2, episode 1) is relevant and discussed in the paper. And here is an interesting news story about someone who made a chat-bot replica of a dead friend.