2 days ago
AI is everywhere. Can it write obituaries?
When my mother-in-law passed away earlier this year, my brother-in-law spent hours painstakingly crafting her obituary. It was a labor of love, done in the midst of grief.
He could have been helped by artificial intelligence (AI).
And herein lies the quandary: should he have turned to AI for help? It could have saved him time and grief. Of course, 'should' is a personal question and one only family members can answer. But if you were to ask if AI could help write an obituary, well then, the answer is yes. AI is already writing obituaries for funeral homes and has been for some time. In fact, there is specialized software designed specifically for obituaries.
CelebrateAlly is an AI-based software program that can help you plan weddings, birthdays and yes, remembrances for your loved ones. For this one, you will be given prompts to fill out so the AI bot can create a more personalized obituary or speech. In fact, for obituaries, there are 110 questions to fill out, with questions not only about life events, but also about mannerisms, favorite celebrities and their perfect day.
The Washington Post reported recently that Josh McQueen, the vice president of marketing and product for the funeral-home management software Passare, said its AI tool has written tens of thousands of obituaries nationwide in the past few years.
The Post also reported that Ryan Lynch, the head of product at PlotBox, an Ireland-based developer of cemetery software, said the tools were the talk of last year's National Funeral Directors Association conference in Las Vegas.
'Someone did stand up and say they thought it was the greatest advancement in funeral-home technology since some kind of embalming tool,' Lynch said. 'Which I thought was maybe a bit hyperbolic.' The enthusiasm was clear, though. AI-generated obituaries are a game-changer.
AI can save a lot of time for funeral directors who are often pinched for time. For a funeral home to write obituaries may take six hours or more — three hours meeting with the family to gather details and another three to craft an obituary. From that standpoint, it's easy to see the appeal.
Still, it can feel cold and impersonal to grieving family members. Disrespectful, even, to use an algorithm to create something as personal as an obituary for a loved one.
Recently on KSL's Inside Sources, which I cohost with long-time attorney Greg Skordas, we asked our listeners if they would use AI to generate an obituary. Responses were about evenly split between 'absolutely not' and 'yes! We did it recently and it turned out beautifully!'
Greg and I, though, thought we would ask ChatGPT to write obituaries for us. It was a fun exercise, at least for me. After having written hundreds of articles over a number of years, ChatGPT didn't have much trouble finding information about me.
Greg, on the other hand, had a bit more trouble. He asked his wife for help and the first time she tried, she got a message from the AI helper expressing condolences for her loss. After that, our producer tried and her first response back was 'I couldn't locate any obituary indicating that Greg Skordas of Utah has passed away. In fact, all available information shows him as a living attorney and former political candidate.'
After asking AI to write a mock obituary, we finally got something that generally got the details of his life right, but without much personalization.
I played around with mine, asking ChatGPT to add in my new role on the radio (it missed that), then to write one that emphasized my faith. That was fun. It made up a quote I supposedly say all the time: 'We are here to love, to lift and to lead — with faith as our guide.' Not bad, but also not true.
But, my favorite version is when I asked ChatGPT to please include some of my imperfections. Then, I got gems like these: 'Holly's life was not quiet, and neither was she. She could be stubborn, opinionated and sometimes struggled to sit still — constantly driven by an inner fire to do more, to fix what was broken and to speak up for what she believed in.' OK, accurate.
'She was not one to back down from a fight, and her boldness sometimes rubbed others the wrong way.' Also accurate.
'She made mistakes — personally and professionally — and didn't pretend otherwise. But she always sought to learn from them, to repent, to reconcile and to move forward with humility.
'Above all, Holly lived with purpose. She had an insatiable drive to build, to lead, to nurture and to lift. Her hands and heart were rarely idle. She gave her energy to causes she believed in, even when she was exhausted. She offered her voice, even when it trembled. And she gave her heart, even when it had been bruised.
'Holly didn't live a small or quiet life. She lived all in. She made mistakes. She made amends. She gave everything she had.' I'll take it.
As we continue to embrace AI innovations, perhaps the most meaningful way forward is to find a balance — where AI can support us in our tasks, while we hold onto the aspects that make us human. In the end, an obituary should reflect not just a life, but the love, struggle and humanity that defined that life.
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