Can AI revive the dead?

Calum Worthy, a former American actor, recently launched the 2wai app on X. Powered by AI, it creates interactive avatars of deceased loved ones. Welcome to a dystopia worthy of Black Mirror.
 
The 2wai advertisement shows a pregnant woman talking with the AI avatar of her deceased mother. Ten months later, the 'AI grandma' reads a story to the baby. The boy grows up, surrounded by his 'fake grandma'. He talks to her when he gets home from school. As an adult, he tells her he's going to be a father. What a dream. Spending your life talking to an 'AI grandma'.
 
On X, this ad sparked outrage. Many find the app 'diabolical' and compare it to the 'Be Right Back' episode of Black Mirror. But let's go back a few years...
 
In 2022, Amazon already allowed Alexa to imitate the voice of a deceased loved one. 'While AI cannot eliminate the pain of loss, it can make their memories endure,' said Rohit Prasad, Amazon's vice president, at the time. This fantasy of eliminating death is not new: pharaohs built pyramids so that people would not forget them after their death.
 
But today, technology offers more powerful means: biotechnologies, nanotechnologies, artificial intelligence. A transhumanist dream on the verge of becoming reality? Julian Huxley theorized transhumanism in the 1950s. He is the brother of Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World. Transhumanists believe that humanity will 'transcend' itself through technology: it could, and even should, conquer death and disease. Facing the fear of death, a new religion. To become an 'AI grandma'. What luck! But the 'AI grandma' is just a morbid illusion. No one, in flesh and blood, continues to live through AI. It's just a parody, a pale imitation of a deceased person, without consciousness or sensitivity.
 
AI avatars of deceased loved ones actually make us deny death. These illusions complicate the grieving process. MIT researchers warn of emotional and cognitive dangers: 'AI grandmas' can make us invent false memories! At ATR, we reject the instrumentalization of death and grief by technology. Death is part of life. It is what allows the passing of the torch to new generations.
 
We reject technologies that sow death, but also those that seek to abolish it.
They are just two sides of the same coin.
Against transhumanism, will you join us?