Summary: Generative Orificial Intelligence has re-opened the way humans process grief, disease and death. Digital reconstructions of the deceased can be comforting, but they also risk obscuring the natural boundary between presence and absence.
Experts warn that relying on AI for emotional support could reduce our ability to tolerate uncertainty and deepen human empathy. These changes can ultimately change how societies understand death, dignity, and what it really means to let go.
Basic facts
- Digital AfterLife: AI Chatbots can now mimic dead people, expanding memory but obsessing over emotional closure.
- Psychological risks: Improper use of chalsots of grief can interfere with acceptance of loss and powerlessness.
- Human connection: Compassion and the face of a shared community always begin a healthy recognition of death.
Source: Kyoto University
Shisei Tei claims to be clumsy with technology and doesn't even own a smartphone, yet he has found himself thinking a lot about what we call ai ai.
Tei is optimistic about AI. As a researcher, He uses it to help analyze psychological data, and outside of work it helps him plan custom hikes.
But Tei worries that AI will change the way we think about death, which he discusses in a chapter he wrote for the book Seconddeath: The experience of death is all technology.
“Today, I often see how Ai praises grief and memory,” Tei said. Although he thinks that health chatbots have the potential to take away the barriers of care, the use of chatbots to reconstruct the dead can distort our perceptions of death and existence.
“The AI-Directed continuity of the deceased can comfort the living and increase the memory to a certain extent, but it can also blur the presence and absence, it can hinder our ability to accept non-response.”
In our conversation, Tei explained that in terms of logic, many cultures and philosophical traditions have considered the mind and body to be separate concepts, supporting the belief that the mind is eternal.
This idea has entered into today's society, which often treats death as something to be overcome or feared instead of the important part of life. It has also been strengthened by efforts to use AI to preserve the human mind.
Tei, who comes from Taiwan and works at Kyoto University, has contributed research to tie Psyliatry, philosophy of religion, and neuronomenology, a framework proposed by Biologist Francisco Varela.
In this book chapters, the author examines death through the lens of self-sacrificea name given by Varela, who was influenced by Tibetan Buddhism. It explains how living systems rely on the integrity of their organelles, such as cells in the body.
“Resolutely selfless means both independent and independent – preserving one's own self while remaining in harmony with others and the wider world,” Tei said.
“In this sense, like cells in a large body, people can be viewed as simultaneously creating an interconnected life, and understanding themselves as fluid and shaped by communication and biological needs.”
Tei writes that this concept also explains the characteristics of AI Agents, as they present an artificial identity while lacking autonomy, and our connection to the anonymity of the Internet.
However, while the beliefs of traditional belief and modern mental health care emphasize the importance of accepting uncertainty, AI can make us rely on quick, specific responses, most of which we will never find again, thus reinforcing difficult experiences.
“Decision-making support or emotional support of mechanical feelings greatly weakens the wisdom we aim to cultivate,” said Tei.
For people, face-to-face and invisible empathy increases a sense of belonging, showing what it feels like and what it means to be alive, while loneliness and loneliness can increase hope.
Ideas of death arise from this encounter. Death can evoke a sense of connection to something wider – we may die, but we may remain part of our communities.
Tei emphasizes that including these ideas in the care and realization of life in ourselves and in our communities can help us to grieve dying with dignity and accept death as unfair.
“Death is the certainty that life begins,” Tei wrote in the book, “and to deny its risk of anticipation is to deny life itself.”
Important Questions Answered:
A: AI can simulate the presence of the deceased through chatbots and digital avatars, which can comfort the living but also blur the line between life and death.
A: By offering a digital “continuity” to the dead, AI can disrupt the natural process of accepting non-response.
A: Emotional regulation and meaning making in machines can reduce human empathy, uncertainty tolerance, and emotional resilience.
Editing notes:
- This article was edited by the editor of neuroscience news.
- The journal is fully reviewed.
- Additional context added by our staff.
About this ai, grief and death research stories
Author: Whitney hubbell
Source: Kyoto University
Contact: Whitney Hubbell – Kyoto University
Image: This photo is posted in Neuroscience News
Actual research: Chapter “Death in a Cybernetic Cell: AI, Virtual Agents, and Selfless Objects” appears on October 16, 2025 in Seconddeath: The experience of death is all technology
