With deep sadness, ChatGPT: funeral homes generate "lazy" obituaries with the help of AI

Cynicism is reaching a new level — funeral homes are now making obituaries (texts to say goodbye to the dead) using ChatGPT.

The AI craze has reached new controversial boundaries of humanity. Until now, we knew that people use ChatGPT to impress another person on dating apps (and then keep quiet on dates). More pour out their souls as a psychotherapist (and then end up in a psychiatric hospital). And now — they don’t even say goodbye from the bottom of their hearts.

It turns out that automation has penetrated the funeral industry. One example of this trend was last year’s conference of the National Association of Funeral Directors in Las Vegas. There, according to Ryan Lynch of PlotBox, the discussion of AI was by far the most popular topic.

In his opinion, the comparison is exaggerated, but the fact remains. At the same time, the second place in the Innovation Awards competition at this conference was taken by Nemu, an AI tool that recognizes, describes, and organizes the belongings of the deceased.

Another example is CelebrateAlley, a startup that creates an obituary generator based on artificial intelligence. Its founder Sonali George says that AI can be “a means of human connection.” She imagined a situation where one friend has died and the other wants to express a sincere tribute that will make everyone laugh. In her opinion, artificial intelligence can help shape such a speech if a person does not want to or does not have the energy to do so.

The Washington Post tested the CelebrateAlley generator, which is powered by OpenAI and Anthropic. However, a classic problem surfaced: AI came up with details even when it was given complete information. For example, if a character was described as “thoughtful” in a query, the system wrote: “His thoughtful nature was manifested in countless acts of kindness, each gesture reflecting his deep understanding of human nature…”.

However, it would be wrong to talk only about the company — ordinary people do the same. From his personal experience, Jeff Fargo, a 55-year-old man from Nevada, said that he used ChatGPT when he couldn’t gather his thoughts to write a text to his mother. The man poured his heart out to the chatbot so that the AI could pick up the words he was struggling with. Now he plans to use OpenAI’s “deep research” mode to create an obituary for his father when the time comes. He even hopes that his children will do the same for him.

But frankly, not everyone likes the automation of sincerity. The mother of one of the developers expressed the opinion that people’s desire to write their goodbyes faster and get on with their lives is an unfortunate trend. Critics say that such texts may sound beautiful, but they lose the most important thing: truthfulness. Ultimately, writing obituaries with AI raises questions of ethics, humanity, and sincerity. And then they are can be found on Google.

Source: Washington Post