The virtual world can bring a kind of friendship and a kind of connection, even to the grieving. But it can also facilitate exploitation of very human needs
Joaquin Oliver was 17 years old when he was shot in the hallway of his high school. An older teenager, expelled some months previously, had opened fire with a high-powered rifle on Valentine’s Day in what became America’s deadliest high school shooting. Seven years on, Joaquin says he thinks it’s important to talk about what happened on that day in Parkland, Florida, “so that we can create a safer future for everyone”.
But sadly, what happened to Joaquin that day is that he died. The oddly metallic voice speaking to the ex-CNN journalist Jim Acosta in an interview on Substack this week was actually that of a digital ghost: an AI, trained on the teenager’s old social media posts at the request of his parents, who are using it to bolster their campaign for tougher gun controls. Like many bereaved families, they have told their child’s story over and over again to heartbreakingly little avail. No wonder they’re pulling desperately at every possible lever now, wondering what it takes to get dead children heard in Washington.
Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist
