AI Ghosts: Griefbots, Digital Twins, and Who Owns a Human Identity

Rocky Mountain AI Interest Group RMAIIG The Rocky Mountain AI Interest Group (RMAIIG) will host an in-person meeting in Boulder on Tuesday, October 13th, at 6:30 pm MT on “AI Ghosts: Griefbots, Digital Twins, and the Question of Who Owns a Human Identity”

What happens when AI begins to feel like someone we know, admire, or even someone we’ve lost?

At this meeting, we’ll explore the emerging world of “AI ghosts,” including griefbots (digital twins of lost loved ones), AI representations of living people, and chatbots that can feel eerily sentient and human.

Researchers and technologists are already experimenting with systems that can recreate elements of a person’s voice, personality, memories, conversational style, appearance, and creative identity. For some people, these technologies may offer new ways to preserve memories, maintain a connection, or find closure. For others, they raise profound questions about grief, identity, consent, ownership, emotional attachment, and what it means for an AI to convincingly simulate a human being.

We’ve brought together a set of speakers who are researching, building, experiencing, and thinking about this firsthand. They will help guide our conversation around some fascinating questions: Who owns a human identity, and what rights should survive when someone is gone? What happens when the simulation becomes extraordinarily convincing? And where should the boundaries be?

Join us for a fascinating and slightly eerie evening at the intersection of AI, memory, creativity, identity, law, grief, and what it means to be human.

Kudos to Susan Adams and Phil Nugent for organizing and running the meeting!

We need a pizza sponsor! If you are interested in helping, please send an email to [[email removed]]([email removed]) with "Pizza Hero" in the subject line.

AI Ghosts: Griefbots, Digital Twins, and the Question of Who Owns a Human Identity CU Boulder East Campus: In-person Aerospace Engineering Sciences Building (Room 120) 3775 Discovery Dr., Boulder, CO 80303 Tuesday, October 13th 6:30 - 8:30 PM 5:45 PM Free pizza (if we get a pizza sponsor) Parking: [https://www.rmaiig.org/parking](https://www.rmaiig.org/parking)

Our first speaker, Jack Manning, will share his research on “generative ghosts,” AI-powered representations that allow people to converse with simulations of deceased loved ones. He’ll explore how people respond to these surprisingly lifelike interactions, their potential upside, and the ethical questions they raise.

Jack is a graduate student in Information Science at the University of Colorado Boulder and holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from CU. His research includes some of the first user-experience studies examining how people interact with AI-generated representations of deceased loved ones.

Next, James Gourley will explore the growing legal battles over AI-generated music, voices, comedy, and other creative works. Using real-world examples from recent lawsuits, he’ll examine what happens when AI can convincingly recreate the work, style, or identity of well-known artists and performers.

James is a partner at Carstens, Allen & Gourley, LLP, where he helps businesses and creators protect their innovations, brands, and creative works through patents, trademarks, and copyrights. His practice also includes representing clients in intellectual property disputes and infringement litigation.

Our third presenter, Juan Pelaez, will share what it’s like to work every day alongside AI agents designed to operate as real members of his team. He’ll explore some of the surprisingly personal and sentient-like interactions that have emerged, and how working with these agents has affected both individuals and the team as a whole.

Juan is a Boulder-based technology entrepreneur, software architect, and CTO and founder of 23blocks and 3Metas. He has led more than 150 technology projects and has extensive experience building software platforms, integrating AI, and advising and investing in startups.

And finally, Tom Williams, will explore how the dreams and nightmares of robotics have haunted the field since its inception. In his talk, “The Haunting of Robotics,” he’ll examine how contemporary AI and robotics are creating new kinds of “ghosts” of our own making, and what these specters, revenants, ghosts, and gholas might mean for the people building these technologies.

Tom is an associate professor of computer science at Colorado School of Mines, director of the Mines Interactive Robotics Research Lab (MIRRORLab), and author of Degrees of Freedom: On Robotics and Social Justice, published by MIT Press. In Frank Herbert’s Dune, a ghola is an artificially grown human duplicate created from the cells of a deceased person.

Special thanks to Bobby Hodgkinson for suggesting this month's meeting topic and arranging the meeting space!