Should AI be used to help us stay in touch with the dead?

Episode 138: There are 137 episodes of The Ethical Life podcast, and that means there are more than 6,000 minutes of hosts Richard Kyte and Scott Rada talking about various ethical issues. This also means that AI can stitch together all this information and create replicas that would sound — and possibly even think — like them.

Some people already are using such technologies to attempt to keep alive relationships for people who have died. The hosts discuss whether such technologies would help with the healing process or instead make it tougher to move on.

Links to stories discussed during the podcast:

Using AI to talk to the dead, by Rebecca Carballo, The New York Times

Artificial intelligence advances fuel industry trying to preserve loved ones after death, Max Zahn, ABC News

AI versions of deceased loved ones could be a serious threat to mental health, by Nigel Mulligan, The Conversation

About the hosts: Scott Rada is social media manager with Lee Enterprises, and Richard Kyte is the director of the D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership at Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wis. His forthcoming book, "Finding Your Third Place," will be published by Fulcrum Books.

Scott Rada, Lee Enterprises social media manager, and Richard Kyte, director of the Ethics Institute at Viterbo University, talk about the intersection of ethics and modern life.

Follow the show on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify.