Never say goodbye: assumptions of ‘normal’ grief in framings and portrayals of AI grief technologies

Artificial Intelligence (AI) based grief technologies are being offered as solutions to grief: AI griefbots are trained on the departed’s or dying person’s digital footprints to simulate them. Ongoing research questions whether they help or hinder ‘healthy’ grieving, neglecting underlying assumptions about ‘normal’ grieving. Using multimodal critical discourse analysis, this article analyses AI grief technology framings and portrayals in documentaries and six services’ websites (Seance AI; Eternos; You, Only Virtual; HereAfter AI; Project December; re;memory). We demonstrate AI grief technologies’ contribution to renegotiating grief as a technical problem to be solved. The techno-solutions are rooted in existing psychological discourses of ‘normal’ grief and position AI as band-aids or cures for grief and death. Documentaries on AI grief technologies play a significant part in reinforcing boundary-setting between normality and abnormality. Grief shifts from a human experience to something that can and should be made more efficient or avoided altogether through AI.