I will start this journal with a post on a true and shocking story I heard yesterday on an Italian television program. It is the story of a father, with his 21 years-old son who lost a wife and a mother from a disease 18 months ago. Both experienced their loss with great pain. The father, in addition to his pain for the premature loss of his wife, felt the responsibility to take care of his son, knowing well that the young man was extremely close and attached to his mother (maybe too close?) and was distant from him. He tried his best, within his grief, but with persistent love, to be close to his son’s despair for the “unacceptable loss” of his mother, but he saw him slowly sinking in a deep helpless abyss. The young man stopped going to university. Stopped his studies and exams. He even stopped seeing his friends, who tried everything they could to convince him to return to his own life.
The young man instead decided to stay at home alone in his room shutting his door to everyone and everything, including his girlfriend and his father. As he stated his relationship with his mother was too special and he felt the need to continue cultivating it regardless of what had happened. It was the only thing that mattered.
His father tried to convince him he needed to ask for specific professional help and told him he should see a psychotherapist, because his life deserved to be lived beyond their terrible loss.
All efforts were unsuccessful, but he still hoped that time would slowly allow his son to return to his life. The man went back to work, although his worries were all at home with his son. One day he decided to go back home from work earlier than usual…
When he entered the door of their home, he heard his son talking to someone in his room. He walked towards the room surprised and, also quite curious to understand who the other person was. At that precise moment, behind his son’s bedroom door, he heard the voice of a woman talking with his son. He freezes in shock. It was a voice he knew very well: the voice of his wife… What was happening in his son’s room was beyond any imagination…
Before we go into the son’s room, to see what was going on, we need to share the “extreme decision” the father decided to take soon after that terrible afternoon. He decided to bring his son to court, to force him through a legal decision, to leave the house. This was the content of the TV program: the court case of a father against his son. But what happened in the room that terrible afternoon? How was it possible that his dead wife was talking to their son?
And here comes the “difficult to believe” but real part of the story. The young man, who clearly could not and did not want to face his loss and process his grief, had found “The Solution” to keep his mother with him…After spending days and weeks in front of his computer, looking at videos and photos of his mother, he found (or was
offered through the web) an app that could help him… AI would allow his mother to stay with him and comfort him with her loving presence and words… The voice his father heard behind his son’s room door was really his wife’s voice and the content of what she was saying was offered by AI…
The court debate was difficult to believe, even for a mature analyst who is used to “hold” the intricacies and complexities of death for human beings. Part of this story is about death, loss, and mourning. It is about the most difficult-to-accept experience of life, and we all know the many different forms it can take, and the different amount of time it needs to be processed for each human being. But this case is also something else. Something we should all reflect on. We hear many stories and concerns about AI. How it can be helpful or why it could be dangerous. But in this case, what is new, compared to psychological syndromes we have heard linked to social networks and the web, is that this is not the usual case of Japanese Syndrome called Hikikomori. It is much more. It is in a certain way, giving reality to a delusion through the power of the virtual world and burying our heart in it… This young man is using AI to avoid completely his emotions and feelings of grief.
I was left with a deep sense of sadness, loneliness, and despair… I identified clearly with the father’s despair, but the story also triggered in me many questions about the terrible incapacity we all have today, to deal with very difficult emotions in front of death, to process grief through our resources, and transform loss -with the necessary time- into lasting and lively feelings and thoughts. We know well the importance of the mother’s voice in any healthy attachment during the first months of life but clinging to “The Voice” of his mother forever, burying oneself in a bedroom, with the help of AI is a false and dangerous solution. Are we prepared for a real and open reflection, not only on the opportunities and dangers of AI, compared to Human Intelligence, but also on how our deep human fragilities can misguide us with the help of AI? Can a voice in a computer heal our loss, and help us avoid death, by replacing the essence of a real relationship, of real emotions and real human feelings?
I will end the post with the words of the father to his son during the court case: “I know how much you loved your mother and how unbearable her loss can be. I also know that I was not always the ‘perfect father for you’. But what I know for sure is that I am here for you, I can take you in my arms, I can share tears and despair with you, and learn again together to walk in life”.
If you read this post, you might want to share your feelings, reflections, and questions about it. Please feel free to send us your comments They are welcome.
