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When a journalist uses AI to interview a dead child, isn’t it time to ask what the boundaries should be?
The virtual world can bring a kind of friendship and a kind of connection, even to the grieving. But it can also facilitate exploitation of very human needs, says Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff
The oddly metallic voice speaking to the ex-CNN journalist Jim Acosta in an interview on Substack this week was actually that of a digital ghost: an AI, trained on the teenager’s old social media posts at the request of his parents, who are using it to bolster their campaign for tougher gun controls. Perhaps it won’t be long before companies or even government agencies already using chatbots to deal with customer inquiries start wondering if they could deploy PR avatars to answer journalists’ questions. But for now, perhaps the most obvious risk is of conspiracy theorists citing this interview as “proof” that any story challenging to their beliefs could be a hoax, the same deranged lie famously peddled by Infowars host Alex Jones about the Sandy Hook school shootings.
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