ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Hum. Dyn.
Sec. Digital Impacts
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fhumd.2025.1582914
This article is part of the Research TopicDigital Relationships: Challenges and Opportunities in the Age of Virtual ConnectivityView all 7 articles
THE ROLE OF DEATH TECHNOLOGIES IN GRIEF: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY EXAMINATION OF AI, COGNITION, AND HUMAN EXPRESSION
Provisionally accepted
Sri Takshara
G Bhuvaneswari*- Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Chennai, India
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In the digital age, grief is undergoing profound transformation as emerging technologies mediate mourning and memory. This paper examines the phenomenological and cognitive implications of death technologies through the narrative of Dimple Ahuja from Mismatched Season 3, focusing on her creation of the 'Dadbot' an AI tool simulating her deceased father's voice. Anchored in lived experience, the study explores the psychological, neuroscientific, and ethical dimensions of using AI to navigate grief. The 'Dadbot' offers solace by bridging absence and presence but risks fostering emotional dependency, delaying acceptance, and altering the brain's adaptive processes such as neuroplasticity and emotional regulation. From a phenomenological perspective, it interrogates how simulated interactions challenge the authenticity of mourning, reshaping personal and cultural understandings of death. The interdisciplinary study concludes with reflections on balancing technological innovation with ethical imperatives, ensuring these tools honour the sanctity of human connections while preserving the authenticity of memory, love, and loss.
Keywords: Death Technology, implications, Psychology, grieving process, Neuroscience, Humanities
Received: 25 Feb 2025; Accepted: 26 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Takshara and Bhuvaneswari. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: G Bhuvaneswari, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Chennai, India
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