People have had obituaries written for them by funeral directors and pastors and priests and people that didn’t know the deceased forever. This is absolutely acceptable and nobody should judge for not wanting to write it yourself or to have assistance. Seriously come down off your high horse and realize not everyone can write about personal things and not everyone deals with death the same way. We should all hope anyone bothers to take the time to recognize we’re gone at all.
You are absolutely right, for you and your family that is the way . It’s truly a personal thing and judging others for how they handle their personal grief is really this issue here. That’s what I think is not ok. Saying the way someone does something so personal is wrong is the overreach.
And keep in mind that whether a person or an AI tool writes the obituary, what it/they are really doing is organizing a bunch of random thoughts that come out of a grieving human and create a nice obituary that flows and tells the story. The story is not made up, it comes from the memories of the grieving people. I would also add that it is hard to compose one’s thoughts with emotions and tears running down your face. Help from a funeral director, pastor, or now Claude is probably greatly appreciated and the well written obituary honors the deceased because it communicates those wonderful memories in a clear and organized fashion.
The family should of had someone close to the family write it that knew her. Oh, like the writer of this substack for starters. AI or A1 what ever you want to call it is a crutch to use. People can and should do it on their own, with help from people that actually feel.
It’s not like the AI created on its own. It cannot. It reflects back to you based on your input. It’s no more cold than using a graphite pencil to scratch out your words on a piece of chemically processed dead tree. It’s a tool. If it helps someone express themselves how is that wrong? It creates absolutely nothing on its own. Nothing. Creativity requires the human.
It’s not like the AI created on its own. It cannot. It reflects back to you based on your input. It’s no more cold than using a graphite pencil to scratch out your words on a piece of chemically processed dead tree. It’s a tool. If it helps someone express themselves how is that wrong? It creates absolutely nothing on its own. Nothing. Creativity requires the human.
I agree with you as some people don’t have the eloquence to write a considerate obituary. Death can be a sensitive topic to many and it is best left to someone who knows how to handle it well.
Que celui qui essaye de le discriminer juste for looping pornographique for sacoche soulagée, you appelle 100 curé et demande où fouille directement sa vie, je n'ai rien à cacher aux yeux de se monde ,mes voys avez énormément peur de perdre le fil de les informations provenant de ka haut ,je déteste les personnes qui se regroupe ensemble pour une cause et une fois votre dos tourné Les Esprit malsain vous dévoile des choses qui sort du contexte, je vais pour la première fois de ma vie, commencer à exigée, et pas svp tu pourrai faire cela ,va te faire mettre, fini les paroles comme un agneau, je le dois de devenir une bête féroce qui rien que part la pensée logique voys mets en échec et math ,que celui qui veut comprendre un peux ma vie ,je lui permet d'être moi 10 jours et moi je lui rallonge sa vie de 10 ans ,car u e période de 10 jours sans Que qui ou pourquoi que fais tu mes non pas comme sa faut faire comme ,tu sais va voir autre part si j'y suis pas OK prend ton temps
idk how tf you can compare delegating something to an Ai to delegating something to a priest or a family member, or even copying one from an example. how can you delegate celebrating someone's life to a probability calculator. how can you not see how wrong that is? oh, is it bc ai knows you better than any human ever did? I didn't think there could be an evolution of the manosphere, but here we are, into the aisphere, all genders allowed 🤦♀️
Sometimes truth may sound rude, but it’s still truth. Would you rather somebody be honest with you or lie to your face and tell you that you’re so beautiful I’d rather have the truth. Because I don’t care what they think I already know what I look like?
Well maybe you see that as rude, and maybe it was, but the OP was taking a definite position of superiority and was definitely looking down on people who don’t do as they expect.. it seemed an appropriate metaphorical callout.
Totally agree that writer was immensely rude. Simple reading showed she generally is and title of her writing shows it even more. She lacked empathy in buckets.
So sorry for your loss! She’s sounds like a wonderful woman that I would have loved to meet. Those are very sweet memories, hold them close to your heart.
Renowned Harvard professor Michael Sandel asked a powerful question:
What if, after your grandmother passes away, her emails, voice recordings, photos, and social media are used to train a chatbot? It speaks like her, remembers your childhood, and gives advice in her voice. You, and even your children, could talk to her again. Would that bring comfort or distort grief?
Loss isn’t a flaw in being human. It’s the price of love. To mourn is to remember that someone truly mattered.
My brother wrote our father’s in ChatGPT and then couldn’t pronounce most of what it had written. I never told him I knew he’d used it as it would have felt hurtful but it was disappointing. I understand why he did it as he’s not a confident writer, I think what rankled was he thought we wouldn’t realise.
The creator is Anthropic. They are the only company (although not perfect) clear about ethical practices and following them. Open Ai (chat GPT) and Google (Gemeni) are wolves.
Not with the grief. The grief is real and the list of her Nana is one of the most human things I have read this year. The crawdad fingers. The driveway. Country Roads until she died. Nobody disputes that.
What I dispute is the conclusion hiding underneath it: that the source of our comfort matters as much as the comfort itself.
We don't apply this standard anywhere else we care about deeply. The surgeon uses a robot. The pacemaker regulates the heartbeat without a human hand involved. We don't demand that medicine be human in order to be meaningful. We judge it by whether it heals.
There is a deeper irony that the AI obituary debate never addresses. We are asked to accept, on faith, the authority of a presence that cannot be seen, verified, or confirmed to be listening. The invisible, unknowable God is the foundation of every religious enterprise. If the congregation can accept that mediation — and they do, every week, every service, every prayer - it is not obvious why algorithmic mediation should be where we draw the line. And what is more, we send condolence cards without a second thought - and nobody questions whether they express our sincere sympathy.
The question is not whether the obituary was written by a human. The question is whether it does what obituaries are for.
Daisy cashin's Nana does not need her protecting. She said so herself. And if an AI assembled the right words to send her grandmother into the world with dignity - I think her grandmother's soul is sturdy enough to accept them.
No tangent at all. According to Daisy obituaries are not for the person who is dead. They’re for us, the living.” If that’s true, the test is whether it comforts the living - not who typed it. A gravestone doesn’t lose meaning based on whose chisel cut it. Daisy wants it both ways: function over authorship in one sentence, then a “soul” requirement in the next.
"You are a biographer relying on research, and you can look at all our interactions for this assignment. My name is Joshua Hardy Carroll and I was born at a Kaiser hospital in Fontana California on August 5th, 1965. I graduated Catalina High School in 1983. My professional name is J Hardy Carroll. You need to get vetted research from the internet and social media and write a 1000 word obituary for me to keep on file."
You have written the most beautiful eulogy for her. He may not be able to express his emotions as you have. Share this with him. Give him a hug and understand we all grieve in our own way. Your Nana sounds like a wonderful woman,
you all were so very lucky to have her. I am sorry for your loss.
I loved this. And good for you for not killing your uncle - - I had fun imagining this. He will be gone soon enough. Your tender words about your nana have honored her with love and elegance. It left me wanting to know her. And I am truly sorry for your big loss.
“Nobody can articulate who this product is for or why they would pay this price for it, including the people who are supposed to be selling it.” It’s the tenth anniversary of Brexit this week. Just saying.
AI takeover is not supposed to be a big event held someone. It's the choices we make everyday by giving simple tasks to AI because we find it difficult to think.
I love the heartfelt and authentic Nana obituary. Nana lived like a spitfire who appreciated life, nature, and her family. Beautiful. Now I want to see the AI version. If it's as bad as the crap AI wrote for our business website without me wanting it, it'll be hilarious.
Would have been so thoughtful for someone to consider the need to write such thoughtful things before the uncle had to do it likely in a rush. I would have loved a tool to compose a message just 3 days after staying up for 48 hours to watch my father pass and months of minimal help from siblings. There’s only so much a human can do in a time of stress and grief. Give some grace.
People have had obituaries written for them by funeral directors and pastors and priests and people that didn’t know the deceased forever. This is absolutely acceptable and nobody should judge for not wanting to write it yourself or to have assistance. Seriously come down off your high horse and realize not everyone can write about personal things and not everyone deals with death the same way. We should all hope anyone bothers to take the time to recognize we’re gone at all.
Sorry...quite wrong...one of the most personal things a human can write....and you are ok with a machine...glad you are not in my family...
When you are grieving it can be a helpful resource. I used it for my Dad’s obituary and saved so much time and energy.
Try to use Ai to write your own obituary. And see if you like it.
If you had any privacy at all, it may be highly inacurate.
If you had no privacy i hope you didnt visit to many porn sites that AI could chat about.
Sorry to put it that blunt, but AI should not be in that sphere at all.
exactly
exactly
You are absolutely right, for you and your family that is the way . It’s truly a personal thing and judging others for how they handle their personal grief is really this issue here. That’s what I think is not ok. Saying the way someone does something so personal is wrong is the overreach.
And keep in mind that whether a person or an AI tool writes the obituary, what it/they are really doing is organizing a bunch of random thoughts that come out of a grieving human and create a nice obituary that flows and tells the story. The story is not made up, it comes from the memories of the grieving people. I would also add that it is hard to compose one’s thoughts with emotions and tears running down your face. Help from a funeral director, pastor, or now Claude is probably greatly appreciated and the well written obituary honors the deceased because it communicates those wonderful memories in a clear and organized fashion.
The family should of had someone close to the family write it that knew her. Oh, like the writer of this substack for starters. AI or A1 what ever you want to call it is a crutch to use. People can and should do it on their own, with help from people that actually feel.
exactly. we need to think for ourselves. these are human experiences, no machines will understand that.
It’s not like the AI created on its own. It cannot. It reflects back to you based on your input. It’s no more cold than using a graphite pencil to scratch out your words on a piece of chemically processed dead tree. It’s a tool. If it helps someone express themselves how is that wrong? It creates absolutely nothing on its own. Nothing. Creativity requires the human.
Thanks for seeing things with wisdom!
It’s not like the AI created on its own. It cannot. It reflects back to you based on your input. It’s no more cold than using a graphite pencil to scratch out your words on a piece of chemically processed dead tree. It’s a tool. If it helps someone express themselves how is that wrong? It creates absolutely nothing on its own. Nothing. Creativity requires the human.
I agree with you as some people don’t have the eloquence to write a considerate obituary. Death can be a sensitive topic to many and it is best left to someone who knows how to handle it well.
Very sad if the program writes your obituary
Que celui qui essaye de le discriminer juste for looping pornographique for sacoche soulagée, you appelle 100 curé et demande où fouille directement sa vie, je n'ai rien à cacher aux yeux de se monde ,mes voys avez énormément peur de perdre le fil de les informations provenant de ka haut ,je déteste les personnes qui se regroupe ensemble pour une cause et une fois votre dos tourné Les Esprit malsain vous dévoile des choses qui sort du contexte, je vais pour la première fois de ma vie, commencer à exigée, et pas svp tu pourrai faire cela ,va te faire mettre, fini les paroles comme un agneau, je le dois de devenir une bête féroce qui rien que part la pensée logique voys mets en échec et math ,que celui qui veut comprendre un peux ma vie ,je lui permet d'être moi 10 jours et moi je lui rallonge sa vie de 10 ans ,car u e période de 10 jours sans Que qui ou pourquoi que fais tu mes non pas comme sa faut faire comme ,tu sais va voir autre part si j'y suis pas OK prend ton temps
idk how tf you can compare delegating something to an Ai to delegating something to a priest or a family member, or even copying one from an example. how can you delegate celebrating someone's life to a probability calculator. how can you not see how wrong that is? oh, is it bc ai knows you better than any human ever did? I didn't think there could be an evolution of the manosphere, but here we are, into the aisphere, all genders allowed 🤦♀️
´
Yes!
rude
Sometimes truth may sound rude, but it’s still truth. Would you rather somebody be honest with you or lie to your face and tell you that you’re so beautiful I’d rather have the truth. Because I don’t care what they think I already know what I look like?
It was a rude comment to tell the poster to get off his or her "high horse." That's the truth, deal with it.
Well maybe you see that as rude, and maybe it was, but the OP was taking a definite position of superiority and was definitely looking down on people who don’t do as they expect.. it seemed an appropriate metaphorical callout.
Totally agree that writer was immensely rude. Simple reading showed she generally is and title of her writing shows it even more. She lacked empathy in buckets.
So sorry for your loss! She’s sounds like a wonderful woman that I would have loved to meet. Those are very sweet memories, hold them close to your heart.
Renowned Harvard professor Michael Sandel asked a powerful question:
What if, after your grandmother passes away, her emails, voice recordings, photos, and social media are used to train a chatbot? It speaks like her, remembers your childhood, and gives advice in her voice. You, and even your children, could talk to her again. Would that bring comfort or distort grief?
Loss isn’t a flaw in being human. It’s the price of love. To mourn is to remember that someone truly mattered.
well said. don't lose that last human experience you will have with that family member. you won't get that chance again!
Yes! Exactly! That's also why we need to cherish the time we have together with our family.
Black mirror had these episodes
My brother wrote our father’s in ChatGPT and then couldn’t pronounce most of what it had written. I never told him I knew he’d used it as it would have felt hurtful but it was disappointing. I understand why he did it as he’s not a confident writer, I think what rankled was he thought we wouldn’t realise.
Is « Claude* » an AI name?!? It was my dad’s!!!;
Yep - there’s two big “AI” out there: ChatGPT and Claude
The creator is Anthropic. They are the only company (although not perfect) clear about ethical practices and following them. Open Ai (chat GPT) and Google (Gemeni) are wolves.
I understood the rage completely.
But I disagree with it.
Not with the grief. The grief is real and the list of her Nana is one of the most human things I have read this year. The crawdad fingers. The driveway. Country Roads until she died. Nobody disputes that.
What I dispute is the conclusion hiding underneath it: that the source of our comfort matters as much as the comfort itself.
We don't apply this standard anywhere else we care about deeply. The surgeon uses a robot. The pacemaker regulates the heartbeat without a human hand involved. We don't demand that medicine be human in order to be meaningful. We judge it by whether it heals.
There is a deeper irony that the AI obituary debate never addresses. We are asked to accept, on faith, the authority of a presence that cannot be seen, verified, or confirmed to be listening. The invisible, unknowable God is the foundation of every religious enterprise. If the congregation can accept that mediation — and they do, every week, every service, every prayer - it is not obvious why algorithmic mediation should be where we draw the line. And what is more, we send condolence cards without a second thought - and nobody questions whether they express our sincere sympathy.
The question is not whether the obituary was written by a human. The question is whether it does what obituaries are for.
Daisy cashin's Nana does not need her protecting. She said so herself. And if an AI assembled the right words to send her grandmother into the world with dignity - I think her grandmother's soul is sturdy enough to accept them.
Did you use AI to write this
Funny, I was just about to ask you the same question myself, but thought better of it, because I thought it would be rude…
I mean.. the post says that obituaries are for the living.. what.. what was this tangent for is what I want to know
No tangent at all. According to Daisy obituaries are not for the person who is dead. They’re for us, the living.” If that’s true, the test is whether it comforts the living - not who typed it. A gravestone doesn’t lose meaning based on whose chisel cut it. Daisy wants it both ways: function over authorship in one sentence, then a “soul” requirement in the next.
"You are a biographer relying on research, and you can look at all our interactions for this assignment. My name is Joshua Hardy Carroll and I was born at a Kaiser hospital in Fontana California on August 5th, 1965. I graduated Catalina High School in 1983. My professional name is J Hardy Carroll. You need to get vetted research from the internet and social media and write a 1000 word obituary for me to keep on file."
Try it out and see what happens.
You have written the most beautiful eulogy for her. He may not be able to express his emotions as you have. Share this with him. Give him a hug and understand we all grieve in our own way. Your Nana sounds like a wonderful woman,
you all were so very lucky to have her. I am sorry for your loss.
I loved this. And good for you for not killing your uncle - - I had fun imagining this. He will be gone soon enough. Your tender words about your nana have honored her with love and elegance. It left me wanting to know her. And I am truly sorry for your big loss.
“Nobody can articulate who this product is for or why they would pay this price for it, including the people who are supposed to be selling it.” It’s the tenth anniversary of Brexit this week. Just saying.
Honored my Father’s Day card was included :)
AI takeover is not supposed to be a big event held someone. It's the choices we make everyday by giving simple tasks to AI because we find it difficult to think.
How are these weekender snapshots chosen? Some are very interesting, others a mixed bag. Curious substackers want to know... Thanks!
Definitely hit and miss but, interesting.
I think you just wrote the best obituary
I love the heartfelt and authentic Nana obituary. Nana lived like a spitfire who appreciated life, nature, and her family. Beautiful. Now I want to see the AI version. If it's as bad as the crap AI wrote for our business website without me wanting it, it'll be hilarious.
Would have been so thoughtful for someone to consider the need to write such thoughtful things before the uncle had to do it likely in a rush. I would have loved a tool to compose a message just 3 days after staying up for 48 hours to watch my father pass and months of minimal help from siblings. There’s only so much a human can do in a time of stress and grief. Give some grace.