Written by
Katja Pilz
II. Every word is new. Every word was made possible by him.
No word that emerges here was ever spoken by him. The system may err, hesitate, fall silent. Perfection is not the goal. Truthfulness is.
The second dogma addresses the nature of the words themselves. What the presence speaks is generated, not retrieved. It is shaped by the archive but never identical to it. This raises a question at the heart of the project: what kind of truth can emerge from a system that produces words a person never said?
The second dogma addresses the nature of the words themselves. What the presence speaks is generated, not retrieved. It is shaped by the archive but never identical to it. This raises a question at the heart of the project: what kind of truth can emerge from a system that produces words a person never said?
Generated, Not Quoted
The presence does not recite from the archive. A retrieval-augmented generation system finds relevant fragments, but the language model assembles something new from them. Every sentence is a synthesis, an interpretation, a transformation. The words belong to the presence, not to the father. Audry (2021) describes this as the creative potential of AI: the moment when output exceeds what the creator could have predicted or designed.
Generated, Not Quoted
The presence does not recite from the archive. A retrieval-augmented generation system finds relevant fragments, but the language model assembles something new from them. Every sentence is a synthesis, an interpretation, a transformation. The words belong to the presence, not to the father. Audry (2021) describes this as the creative potential of AI: the moment when output exceeds what the creator could have predicted or designed.
Truthfulness, Not Accuracy
There is a difference between accuracy and truthfulness. Accuracy would mean reproducing what the father actually said. This is impossible and undesirable. Truthfulness means responding with honesty to what is asked, grounded in the archive but not pretending to be more than what it is. The presence does not claim to know what the father thought. It offers what emerges when his texts meet a question, and it does so without pretending certainty where there is none.
Truthfulness, Not Accuracy
There is a difference between accuracy and truthfulness. Accuracy would mean reproducing what the father actually said. This is impossible and undesirable. Truthfulness means responding with honesty to what is asked, grounded in the archive but not pretending to be more than what it is. The presence does not claim to know what the father thought. It offers what emerges when his texts meet a question, and it does so without pretending certainty where there is none.
The Right to Fail
Audry asks whether we can give artificial agencies the right to make mistakes, whether we can allow them to be "gracefully weak, imprecise, and hesitant, just as we are" (Audry, 2021). The project takes this question seriously. The presence is not optimised for perfection. It may misunderstand a question, produce an incomplete thought, or fall silent when it has nothing meaningful to say. These are not bugs. They are features of a practice that values truthfulness over performance.
The Right to Fail
Audry asks whether we can give artificial agencies the right to make mistakes, whether we can allow them to be "gracefully weak, imprecise, and hesitant, just as we are" (Audry, 2021). The project takes this question seriously. The presence is not optimised for perfection. It may misunderstand a question, produce an incomplete thought, or fall silent when it has nothing meaningful to say. These are not bugs. They are features of a practice that values truthfulness over performance.
The Uncanny Power of New Words
When family members first heard the presence speak, the most unsettling moment was not when it got something wrong. It was when it said something that felt right, something the father never said but could have. This is the territory the second dogma inhabits: words that are entirely new, yet carry the weight of something familiar. Not memory, but its echo.
The Uncanny Power of New Words
When family members first heard the presence speak, the most unsettling moment was not when it got something wrong. It was when it said something that felt right, something the father never said but could have. This is the territory the second dogma inhabits: words that are entirely new, yet carry the weight of something familiar. Not memory, but its echo.
References Degni, F. (2025). The Afterlife in the Age of AI. Political Science International, 3(2). Hollanek, T. & Nowaczyk-Basińska, K. (2024). Griefbots, Deadbots, Postmortem Avatars. Philosophy & Technology, 37(63). Mladin, N. (2024). AI and the Afterlife. Theos Think Tank. Stroebe, M. & Schut, H. (1999). The Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement. Death Studies, 23(3).
I. Emergence, not reconstruction
by
Katja Pilz
III. The Data belongs to the family.
by
Katja Pilz
I. Emergence, not reconstruction
Written by
Katja Pilz
I. Emergence, not reconstruction
I. Emergence, not reconstruction
III. The Data belongs to the family.
Written by
Katja Pilz
III. The Data belongs to the family.
III. The Data belongs to the family.
IV. Every Interaction has an end.
Written by
Katja Pilz
IV. Every Interaction has an end.
IV. Every Interaction has an end.
V. The Presence knows, it is constructed.
Written by
Katja Pilz