Can AI help us grieve, or does it blur the line between comfort and delusion in ways we’re not ready for? In this episode of The People’s AI , we explore the rise of grief tech: “griefbots,” AI avatars, and “digital ghosts” designed to simulate conversations with deceased loved ones. We start with Justin Harrison , founder of You, Only Virtual , whose near-fatal motorcycle accident and his mother’s terminal cancer diagnosis led him to build a “Versona,” a virtual version of a person’s persona. We dig into how these systems are trained from real-world data, why “goosebump moments” matter more than perfect realism, and what it means when AI inevitably glitches or hallucinates. Then we zoom out with Jed Brubaker , director of The Identity Lab at CU Boulder , to look at digital legacy and the design principles that should govern grief tech, including avoiding push notifications, building “sunsets,” and confronting the risk of a “second loss” if a platform fails. Finally, we speak with Dr. Elaine Kasket , cyberpsychologist and counselling psychologist, about the psychological reality that grief is idiosyncratic and not scalable, the dangers of grief policing, and the deeper question beneath it all: who controls our data, identity, and access to memories after death. In this episode Justin Harrison’s origin story and the creation of a “Versona” What griefbots are, how they’re trained, and why fidelity is hard The ethics: dependence, delusion risk, and “second loss” Consent, rights, and the economics of data after death Cultural attitudes toward death and why Western discomfort shapes the debate A provocative question: if relationships persist digitally, what does “dead” even mean? Presented by the Vana Foundation . Learn more at vana.org. The People’s AI is presented by Vana , which is supporting the creation of a new internet rooted in data sovereignty and user ownership. Vana’s mission is to build a decentralized data ecosystem where individuals—not corporations—govern their own data and share in the value it creates. Learn more at vana.org .
