This is American hysteria's Aftershock, where I share with you a story that didn't make it into the main episode.

I'm your host, Chelsea Weber-Smith, and today we're talking about grief bots.

As we talked about in last week's episode on the history of talking to the dead, Americans,

and of course, humans in general, have long been looking for ways to connect with dead loved ones.

We also talked about how technology has informed the concept since the telegraph, with new advancements often inspiring a sense of magic in the

population, expanding our imaginations about the limits of space and time, giving us new ideas

about how to reach beyond the veil.

The internet is no exception, and as the years passed since the advent of social media,

more and more of those interfaces are turning into digital cemeteries with the option

to turn Facebook accounts of the deceased into memorial pages where people can post, share memories,

and feel as if they're able to speak to their loved ones, wherever their spirits might be.

Historically, through mediums and Ouija boards, many, many Americans have believed that we can contact the dead.

But now, a University of Washington data scientist hopes to use the internet to allow deceased loved ones to actually reply.

The goal of the service, which is still being tested, is to create a digital legacy that allows your great-grandchildren to interact with their great-grandfather and beyond.

Mohamed Ahmed believes that by collecting all the personal data of the deceased, like their text messages and social media posts,

we have the technology to create a kind of digital profile and eventually a chat bot designed to respond like the dead person would.

The desire for this project struck Mohammed when he lost his father,

who would then go on to become the model for his grief-bought project.

Quote, the idea literally came to me when my brother called me one autumn almost five years ago

to inform me that the doctor had given a week or so notice for our father's death.

At that time, I was not married and didn't have any kids. One of the first thoughts that came to

my mind was that my potential kids will be deprived of knowing what a wonderful man their grandfather

...