are AI replicas of the dead an innovative medical tool or an ethical nightmare?
are AI replicas of the dead an innovative medical tool or an ethical nightmare?
Publish Date: 2026-02-04 14:03:00
Source Domain: theconversation.com
For centuries, work with donated bodies has shaped anatomical knowledge and medical training.
Now, digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) are reshaping education and we can imagine a future where AI-generated representations of dead people – chatbots specifically developed as “thanabots” – are used to support students’ learning.
The term thanabot is derived from thanatology, the study of death. Such AI replicas are already used to assist people during bereavement and could be integrated into medical education.
Thanabots based on information and data from a body donor could interact with students during dissections, providing personalised guidance drawn from medical records, linking clinical history to anatomical findings and improving factual learning.
They might even support the learner’s humanistic development through an intensive first encounter with a dead body who comes “alive” through AI.
At this point, thanabots remain hypothetical in educational settings, but the technology exists to make them a reality. At first glance, this looks like an educational breakthrough – a “first patient” brought to virtual life to enhance both anatomical factual learning and the acquisition of skills such as empathy and professionalism in students.
But as we show in our new research, there are many unknown risks associated with the development of such applications that might raise the question of what it actually means to be dead or even “not quite dead”.
The evolution of thanabots
Thanabots, also called deadbots or griefbots, already exist. They are, at present, mostly being used as tools to help comfort the bereaved, though thanabots of famous people are also available.
Technologies such as Project December, which simulates text-based conversations with the dead, and Deep Nostalgia, which animates old photos, show how digital afterlives are increasingly represented and even normalised.
Extending these tools to…
