Cardinal David Questions ‘AI Afterlife’ Apps That Recreate the Dead as Filipinos Mark Undas
As Filipinos remembered their dead over the Undas holidays, Kalookan Bishop Pablo Virgilio Cardinal David raised questions about artificial intelligence tools that appear to bring the departed back to life, The Philippine Star reported on November 2.
In a Facebook post on Saturday, the cardinal compared apps such as “AI Afterlife” and “AI HereAfter” to a horror film scene that has become real. He pointed to reports of funeral services in the United States that offer a talking likeness of a person, built by feeding AI the deceased’s diaries, photographs, blogs, videos and voice recordings and speaking with a cloned voice, so that families can keep conversing with a digital version years after the burial. He asked readers to imagine a wake where, after the eulogies, the deceased appears on a screen thanking mourners by name. “Perhaps the real question this Halloween is no longer whether ghosts exist, but whether we are beginning to manufacture our own,” he wrote.
David acknowledged that some people may find such conversations comforting while others find them unsettling. His concern, he said, is whether the technology preserves the memory of loved ones or creates an illusion that they never died, and whether it helps people grieve or keeps them from learning to let go.
What it means in practice
The Church in the region is also moving on AI policy. The Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences Office of Social Communications, chaired by Bishop Marcelino Antonio Maralit Jr. of San Pablo, Laguna, has urged bishops’ conferences to adopt pastoral AI policies, digital literacy programmes and Church resources in local languages, and plans a regional committee to train digital missionaries, according to CBCPNews. Its statement warned of online sexual exploitation, scams and deepfakes. Synthetic media is already a live issue at home, from the AI-generated image faking troop support for a senator to the DOJ cybercrime office’s call for clear rules on AI-generated evidence.
It is not yet clear how existing privacy rules would apply to digital replicas built from a dead person’s data and voice. What to watch is whether the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines issues guidance for parishes, whether such services start to be marketed locally, and whether lawmakers address consent for voice and likeness cloning in pending AI bills.