Should AI Have a Place in Grief?

 As Artificial Intelligence becomes a larger part of everyday life, many people are beginning to wonder how it might affect the way we grieve. In this episode, Ty Morgan, Spiritual Care & Education Coordinator at Cornerstone of Hope, joins us for a thoughtful conversation about the relationship between faith, grief, and AI. We explore how technology can support those who are grieving, where its limitations lie, and the importance of maintaining healthy habits and meaningful human connections along the way. 

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 Do you have a topic you'd like us to discuss? Please email us at podcast@clecem.org!

Please feel free to "Connect With Us" via our website at www.clecem.org.

Follow us on:
Facebook: @catholiccemeteriesassociation
Twitter: @CLECatholicCems
Instagram: @clecatholiccems
Blog:  @clevelandcatholiccemeteries
Podcast: "CCAirwaves" on your favorite streaming platform!

Transcript

Welcome And The Big Questions

0:30

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to CC Airwaves. My name is Paige Matillo, and today we're talking about a topic that feels both incredibly modern and deeply personal: grief and artificial intelligence. As technology continues to evolve, AI is becoming part of our lives, including the way people cope with loss. From chatbots that mimic loved ones to AI-generated voices and messages, many people are turning to technology in an attempt to stay connected to someone they've lost. But what does that mean for the grieving process? Can technology provide comfort? Can it complicate the healing process? And where does faith, humanity, and genuine connection fit into all of this? So, to help us navigate these questions, I'm joined by Ty Morgan, Spiritual Care and Education Coordinator at Cornerstone of Hope. Welcome back, Ty. Thank you. It's great to be with you today. I know, I'm so excited to have you back on the podcast. I'm very excited to be here. Ty works very closely with individuals and families experiencing grief, and he brings both professional insight and spiritual perspective into the conversation today. So let's just get started.

Griefbots And The Risk Of Avoidance

1:37

What are you seeing right now in terms of AI and being used in grief and mourning? Yeah, it's a great question. We're seeing a lot, right? And it's continuing to grow. And there's, you know, kind of two sides of the continuum. People that are afraid of it, right? It's going to hurt me, it's evil, it's not good, and those that are really immersing themselves in it. And I don't think it's easy to say that it's black and white, right? It's either harmful or it's good for us. There are ways that I think it has been helpful to folks, and ways that I think could be harmful. One thing I recently came across was what was called a griefbot. And I don't know that those are going to be too helpful, but people are using them where they are providing information to the software, uh, appearances, um, likes, dislikes, uh submitting memories, all the characteristics of their loved one, and then AI will generate an image of their loved one, and they look uh pretty realistic. Uh, and then they interact with them on you know, some level, obviously it's not like having the person with us today, but um so we've looked into that and and tried to explore could that be beneficial? And in some ways, remembering our loved ones is always beneficial, right? The goal is never to forget them. But the concern is not letting go, right? Not allowing ourselves to embrace the reality that they have passed, that they have died, they they're not with us physically anymore, and not embracing the emotional process of letting go and all that grief brings into our lives could be harmful. It's a natural, healthy process for us to embrace all the pain that comes with grief. And if we're using an AI-generated model of our loved one to avoid that, that's where it may not be helpful. Some things that I think have been helpful with AI is generating montages of pictures or creating a video montage of all of the different things that we've captured over the years of them, uh, creating a web page in honor of their loved one, right? AI can be great for doing those kinds of things. And I think those are helpful. So, you know, a lot of times clients will ask about it, and again, never black and white, it's all good or all bad. It's just a caution of if this is anything that you're utilizing to avoid the natural process of grief, that's when it could be harmful. And so sometimes we're encouraging people to do that, right? And sometimes people, I think, have even shared things in session with me. They'll bring their iPhone or uh whatever their device is and show me those memories, those images or those videos, uh, which I think has been a really healthy thing for them to walk through the emotions of grief.

Connection, Yearning, And Healthy Boundaries

4:30

And why do you think people are so drawn to using AI to stay connected to their loved ones? Well, the word you use that's most important is connection, right? I mean, that's really the basis for what makes life meaningful, having a connection. And when we lose a loved one, the pain that we feel is ultimately the loss of the connection. It's really a yearning, right? A yearning to feel and to experience the beauty of the connection that was lost. And AI is creating opportunities to maybe create an artificial connection. Again, that's where it could be not so helpful. But again, if maintaining that connection in healthy ways is available, I think that that's okay. When we experience grief, I like to think of it as like a wound to our soul or heart, right? And to mend that heart or to mend that soul, we find ways to still connect. I encourage people all the time to talk to their loved ones out loud, right? Or to carry their legacy in meaningful ways. You know, cornerstone exists because Mark and Christy Trapoti wanted to honor their son and create resources for people to grieve their loved ones. And that's an amazing way that that young man's life is continuing today, right? I never got to meet him, but his life has impacted mine. Um so finding healthy ways to maintain that connection, continue to nurture the love that we have for those that aren't physically with us anymore is really healthy. And again, AI can create some healthy ways to do that. Um another word I will kind of give to clients is obsession, right? We don't want to be obsessed with connecting to them or obsessed with artificially creating an experience with that loved one again. Right? There has to be a balance of letting go as as as long as there is, you know, um not a complete shutting off, right? We don't want people to just completely close the door, but a healthy level of letting go along with carrying the legacy forward. Earlier today, I actually watched a video ad for a company that does uh avatars for people. And so, for example, you know, I would take a video of my grandmother and it would keep that video, and then I would be able to talk to her long after she passed, even my grandchildren would be able to talk to her through this app. Do you think things like that complicate the grieving process at all? Well, yes and no, once again, right? If there is any um effort on an individual's part to avoid all of the pain and suffering that comes with grief, that's where it would complicate it. Right? In other ways, maybe that could be really beautiful, right? For people to be able to interact or in a real life way see the mannerisms, the characteristics of somebody that was so important to their family history. Again, I I would just always caution people, right? If you get so enmeshed, so connected to that artificial reality and get disconnected from reality, that's where it's harmful. And and just with AI in general, right? There is always going to be the real, what we can uh experience as reality that was created by God. And God's presence in reality, right? I mean, us as humans, we bear the image of God, and part of our journey as a human is connecting with the presence of God in creation, in ourselves and in others. And whenever we create, you know, uh artificially a connection or an alternate reality where we lose touch with the presence of God and lose touch with that meaning is found in that, right? Found in God creating us, God giving us purpose, uh, and ultimately God creating relationship. Um and in relationship, there are times of great joy and times of great pain, and very natural endings in relationship, right? Through death or through other things. People move or, you know, things happen in in life sometimes. But you know, the Bible talks about that too, right, in Ecclesiastes. A time for everything, right? And a health the healthiest individual embraces that full range of experience. Great things, not so great things, things working out the way that we want them to, and things not always working out the way that we want them to. And as it as it is with the emotional process or or our emotional expression, we either embrace them all or we cut them off. Right? I wish we could just choose and say, I'm only gonna experience the good ones. But when we're open to our emotions, that door being opened lets all of them in, both the painful ones and the enjoy the ones that we enjoy. And so uh for us to be connected to all of those emotions is ultimately what it means to uh express ourselves fully as an individual and as a human. And that was God's design from the beginning, right? And we certainly see that in Jesus' life as well. Yeah, absolutely. His life was not always easy, right? He certainly had great times with his friends and his family and ultimately suffered the greatest suffering

Emotions, Faith, And Embracing Reality

9:45

there ever could be. I actually attended a grief symposium uh hosted by Cornerstone of Hope a couple years ago, and one of the panels was called Social Media AI and Grief. And this is kind of where I got the idea to talk about this today. And the speaker talked about how when it becomes a crutch, that's when it becomes harmful. So what advice do you have for someone who might be using AI or technology to help with their grieving process, but has become stuck with it and it's become more of a crutch than just a tool to help them? Yeah, that's a great question. So whether it's AI or alcohol or I mean anything, you know, maybe not something as destructive as alcohol, you know, just surfing the television or, you know, gardening, I mean anything that we use as a distraction to avoid all of uh those emotions and and again the suffering that comes with grief, that's when it becomes problematic. So if an individual does have one of those AI you know generated models of loved ones, and anytime they start to feel that disconnection and pain, they go to that as a way to avoid that. That's when it becomes complicated. You know, anytime we experience growth, it it's through striving or struggle. Um, and and that's a healthy process of us developing as humans. You know, uh children in kindergarten, right? They they go into kindergarten, they don't know how to do certain things at the end of that grade, they know how to do things, and it was through the struggle, the striving to learn to write, to learn to read, or whatever the skills are at that level. Um, and that's the same thing with our emotions, with our development and character and integrity. We have to go through those hard seasons to be able to grow, to flourish and to develop. And again, I think that's the way God created it. So if we develop a habit of having a crutch, whether it be something as, you know, um, you know, not harmful like gardening or knitting, uh, or something that is very self-destructive, like developing alcoholism or something, but related to this topic, AI, um, and that creates a pattern of avoidance. The growth can't happen and the healing won't happen. For us to grow, you know, ultimately with grief, what is happening is not that the grief disappears, right? The reality of grief is that we will always love those that have died. And love doesn't die, right? But we grow around it. So we increase our capacity. If we're using AI as a crutch, our capacity to hold grief will not increase. It will stay the same, which means that pain, uh, when we touch it, will remain overwhelming or consuming. But if we walk through grief in healthy ways and process and metabolize all of the emotions of grief, our capacity will increase. And that's the beauty, again, of the way God created us to grow. Infinite growth is possible emotionally, mentally, um, because of the way God made our brains. And that and that's

When A Helpful Tool Becomes A Crutch

12:53

a beautiful thing to embrace, not a thing that we want to avoid. Yes, absolutely. So, what I've gathered is that there is a line between remembrance and replacement. Uh, would you mind telling our listeners a little bit about how you feel about that? Yeah, I like that you asked it that way, right? That we want to engage in healthy patterns of remembering. And our society right now, I would say, struggles with that, right? We don't have healthy patterns or healthy behaviors that allow us to carry on the legacy and remember our loved ones throughout our lifetime. More often than not, I see with a lot of people attempts to close the door, so to speak, right? They're gone. Let's shut that door and let's move on, which moving on is really disrespectful to our loved ones and harmful to our process of grieving and growing uh through grief. On the other hand, right, where replacement is I'm not going to experience these emotions. Rather, I'm going to do something to make me forget about them or to avoid them at any cost. You know, before AI existed, there was uh oftentimes I I would have clients telling me that their family is consistently telling them to get a puppy or to remarry if their spouse spouse dies, right? Or in very disrespectful ways, right? You know, if you lose a child, people will say, well, you have other children or you could have another child, right? I mean, how hurtful and disrespectful is that. But a puppy's not going to replace your loved one. AI is not in an authentic way gonna replace your loved one. So, yes, a puppy could be helpful, and yes, a AI-generated avatar could be a way of remembering, but never as a source of rep of replacing. That I would say could be out of bounds, right? That we don't want to find anything ultimately to replace them. And when people really start to think about that, why would they want to do that? Right? You know, uh I my my own family, right? If I lose my wife or my children, I would never want to replace that. Is there healthy ways for me to move forward that would involve new connections with other people? Certainly. But with a healthy remembering that would inspire me to make the most of those relationships, right? And and that's the gift of of suffering. I I think there is a wisdom in the suffering of grief that can only be found through walking through those emotions. And remembering facilitates that. Replacement would thwart that process. I really like that you're saying there's healthy ways of using AI to grieve. I think that that's a very great way to look at it because a lot of when I was researching this topic, a lot of it was focusing on the negatives. There wasn't really anything focusing on maybe the way that it could actually help people, like the ways you were stating earlier with like the montages and the websites and the ways that it can be useful. So I really appreciate that you're focusing on the positives as well. Yeah, thank you. And I just think in general, right, we don't want to fear it and and you know villainize it. It's so much a part of our lives now. We don't want to become so dependent on it in grief or in any situation that we need it to exist. But there's healthy ways to allow it to make our lives work and to benefit that is in positive ways. Yeah, exactly. Uh from a spiritual standpoint, how do you think we should be trying to reconnect with someone who has passed? Yeah, so that's you know a big issue for a lot of the people that we see at a cornerstone and even in my family and even in my own life, right? What does connection mean? And what did God intend connection to look like uh with our loved ones after they've passed? It's amazing in the Bible how many examples there are of remembering. I read a book once called The Theology of Remembering, and it pointed out all of the invitations that God gave the Israelites, the disciples, Jesus, all through Scripture, to embrace remembering as a way of establishing identity, um, reminding ourselves of God's faithfulness, uh, reminding ourselves of meaning and purpose for our existence. And so I think part of God's invitation for us in remembering our loved ones is to see that as a gift, right? That God gave us this wonderful ability to remember. Unfortunately, we have a remembering problem. We remember what we should forget, and we forget often what we should remember, right? So there is some problems with that, right? And the the remembering that we have that doesn't allow us to forgive, you know, that that sometimes can complicate it. But truly, memory and remembering our loved one is a gift. And I think God, all through scriptures, said again and again and again to remember, and even gave the Israelites and other examples in the Bible

Remembering Versus Replacing Someone

17:58

rituals for remembering, right? Again, as a way of facilitating us being our healthiest selves, us remembering the lessons that remembering the past provides for us. Right? We we really do ourselves a disservice when we forget what history has shown us and ultimately what our loved ones have taught us. And for me to forget everything that my loved ones that have died have taught me would really be devastating, you know, to think about that, to forget those things. So I think God wants us to do that. And I think, you know, the spiritual practice of remembering, if I can say it that way, right, is a discipline of in our spiritual faith that really would serve us well, uh, both with our loved ones and and both with the faithfulness of God. And so as we journey through our lives, as we remember the faithfulness of God, I think we're serving ourselves and humanity well. As we're carrying on of the legacy of our loved ones, I think we're serving ourselves and and humanity well. And at any time that we uh experience gratitude, which remembrance certainly facilitates that, right? There is always the invitation to be grateful for the present moment and what God has given us right here and now, but uh also remembering all of the things that we have had the joy of experiencing in our lifetime fuels gratitude, which ultimately we see the greatest healing in people's lives when they become individuals uh who regularly practice gratitude. And I see that in the recovery community a lot, right? Some of the most grateful people are those who remember what their addiction did to them and what it took from them. And I think there's some similarities and overlap in the grieving process, right? They're not the same, but in grief recovery, if you will, right, recovering through grief, there is a gratitude that we can hold on to that we eventually get to. I would rather be grateful for having them and losing them than never having them at all. And sometimes it takes a while to

What AI Cannot Give Us

20:16

get there. I don't push people there right away, but certainly will invite them to get to that space eventually, because that really is evidence of amazing healing that has happened in their lives. And at the heart of it all, what do grieving people actually need most that no technology can provide? Yeah, so that that ultimately is what we're seeing a lot of articles about right now. So as it relates to the workplace, right? What can AI never do that we will always need workers to do? Yes, I see that all the time. Yes, right. So I like when I see those articles, right? And and as a counselor, I am pretty, you know, feeling good about my position. Um because empathy is one of those things. That is true. Right? Completely. AI can generate empathic responses, but never really feel the empathy that humans can. And true connection, right? Vulnerability, and ultimately that's what fuels our deepest connections is when people are vulnerable enough to say, I know, I've been through that, or even to offer up things that maybe they're not proud of, but that connect them with another individual in a meaningful way. Again, recovery communities, right? Why is a why are AA meetings so powerful? Vulnerability, shared experience, suffering that I have gone through and you have gone through, that we are now growing through. And those shared experiences lead to some of the greatest healing that any human has ever experienced. And our deepest needs, uh, belonging, right? You can't truly belong to something um that that in and of itself doesn't have the need to belong. Right. And any individual, every individual that has ever lived needs to belong. And AI can artificially create that, but never truly give it to you because it doesn't have it to give. And that comes with empathy, that comes with vulnerability, shared experience, significance, security, and love, right? Love didn't come from a rock. We can't manufacture love through AI. And ultimately, a lot of people who I see that are kind of on the fence, right, maybe they're agnostic or even atheist. And we have some healthy discussions about why I believe in God. And that's one of those things I always point to. Love didn't come from a rock. We didn't grow it out of the soil. Love ultimately, I believe, came from the creator and maker of love, being God. And so when we need that need met, when we need to feel loved, embraced by love, grow with love, we have to ultimately go to the source of love and those that can give the gift of love, that being those that carry the image of God. Right? I think one of the greatest definitions of God is that God is infinite love. God has the infinite capacity to give and receive and to share love. And us as humans, our greatest um ability, uh, the greatest opportunity that we are afforded as humans is to share in that love and to give it to others. And I don't think that AI will ever be able to do that. And for us to be our best selves, that guides all of our decisions. It guides the purpose and meaning that we live. Ultimately, if we can find a job that allows us to give and receive love to humanity in meaningful ways, then I think we found a reason that we were created. And what a beautiful thing that is. I can't agree more. And back to what you said about the shared experiences, I think that's one of the reason why grief support groups, and not even just in general, but the cornerstone of hope grief support groups are so popular because they focus on different types of losses. And as I was saying earlier, uh they focus on young adult loss, uh sibling loss, child loss, and finding that community where people understand you. And I mean, this is probably the goal the Tripotis had when they started that's right. Was to find people who experience those things so that way they you know you're not alone. That's right. Yeah, community is the most profound healing agent in our world. When people connect, there is a healing that happens that no AI can generate, and even me as a counselor can't generate. I tell people all the time, I am honored to be your counselor, but you have to get in a support group because there you will find connection on a level that as a counselor I can't always provide. You know, the the support groups can create lifelong friends. Counselors are always for a period of time with a defined ending. And that's healthy and okay and helpful as well. I don't want to minimize the benefit of counseling, but as you said, Paige, uh the support groups create lifelong connections through shared experience that facilitates healing that can't occur otherwise.

Community, Prayer, And Closing Thoughts

25:28

Thank you so much for joining us again today. Is there anything else you'd like to add before we sign off for the day? Uh I don't think so. I I mean, other than I guess any chance I get to say it, right, God is ultimately our source of healing. If any of us have fears about how to move through grief, go to God in prayer. If you have fear or questions about whether AI or any other source of support is helpful, take that to prayer in God. He ultimately will guide us to make the decisions. And as a society moving forward, what things could be helpful for us to grieve or move forward as humanity, that's really what we need to take to God in prayer. And he will meet us and be faithful to give us wisdom and discernment in all of those situations. I love that. Well, once again, truly, truly a pleasure to have you on the podcast, Ty. And for our listeners, um, we hope today's conversation reminded you that you don't have to navigate loss alone. Real support, real community, and real healing still matter. And while technology may offer temporary discomfort, there is no substitute for human presence, faith, and genuine connection. Thank you so much for joining us today. And until next time, take care of yourself and colleagues.