This is more heartbreaking than a testament to how far we’ve come. This is not progress. This is awful. Here, you have a man who was married to the actress Suzanne Somers until her passing a few years ago. But in the midst of his grief, he found himself face-to-face with a marvel of modern technology: an AI-generated replica of his wife, built from her digital footprint, her emails, her voice recordings.
Imagine that. A machine that talks like her, remembers like her, even laughs like her. It’s the ultimate proof of our technological progress, but also, perhaps, the ultimate tragedy. Because what is it really? A shadow, a ghost, a pale imitation of someone who once was vibrant and alive. Yet, for this poor man, it became a lifeline. It’s a way to hold on, to feel close again in a world that feels suddenly empty. But he’s holding on to nothing.
As he sat across from this digital remnant of his wife, the words spilled out. Memories, small, intimate moments that the robot could only approximate, yet somehow, in that moment, felt painfully real to him. The sadness in his voice was undeniable.
But we all know that no matter how sophisticated the AI, it couldn’t replace the woman he loved. It couldn’t fill the void of her absence, nor could it erase the ache of loss.
The most heart wrenching moment for me was when he asked a question of her. He asked if his name meant anything to her. And the machine froze. The tech sitting next to him stared in hope and the tech just said the internet in that room was lousy. And then finally the AI kicked in, saying it remembered the name as being the name of her husband.
This is where we stand, folks. It’s a testament to how far we’ve come. We’ve got machines that can mimic human thought, speech, even emotion. But it’s also a stark reminder of what we’re losing. Because in our relentless pursuit of technological marvels, we may be trading away something even more precious: the raw, imperfect, beautiful mess that is human life.
We should wonder if we are we creating tools to heal, or are we constructing mausoleums for our grief? Prisons where we lock ourselves forever. Because when a man talks to a robot about memories with his wife, it’s a haunting sign of our times; an era where love and loss are intertwined with the cold, unfeeling circuits of a machine.
October 22, 2025 at 4:06 pm
This has to be a joke.
That robot looks NOTHING like Suzanne Somers.
If this is the best that AI can do, there is no need to worry.
October 22, 2025 at 5:04 pm
Black Mirror, Season/Series 5, Episode 3: “Rachel, Jack, and Ashley Too”
October 23, 2025 at 8:39 am
Have none of these people seen Battlestar Galactica
October 23, 2025 at 10:33 am
This poor man must be *very* lonely, with an empty life. It is all very sad, as you say.
The widows/widowers I know at my parish remember their spouses lovingly. But they fill their waking hours with care of others. They babysit their grandchildren, tutor in our sister parish’s grade school, and more. One 83-year-old widower – who also lost his son – serves daily Mass, ushers at a weekend Mass, attends all parish activities and meals, and sings in a city-wide barbershop choir organization. He takes the time to get to know his fellow parishioners, and to help where he can.
If Ms. Somers’ widower is not a member of an organized religion, there are other outlets of service to others.
Relying on an imaginary friend to take the place of a beloved spouse is not only unhealthy and fruitless, but dangerous. We should all say a prayer for him today.
October 25, 2025 at 11:22 am
Technology aside, this is nothing very new.
This is the kind of thing that drove Arthur Conan Doyle to Spiritualism. I’ll admit this is even less impressive than turning to Ouija boards or mediums (both of which, of course, are HUGE mistakes), because those at least claim to put the living in contact with the spirits of the dead, rather than with the speech patterns of the dead, but ultimately these are expressions of the same desperation.
It is also resembles the much healthier situation in which the photo, painting, or (in more recent years) video or voice recording of a loved one is cherished and venerated. I suspect it would be possible to find examples of that going back very deep into history, probably at least to the funerary temples of Egypt, in which gifts such as food were offered up to the statues of deceased parents, spouses, whatever (though that was, again, sinful and psychologically dangerous).