Death. The big sleep. That foreign land from which no traveler returns. For millennia poets, philosophers, and religious pundits have tried to explain what it means to die. But for all their flowery euphemisms and analogies, there existed one irrefutable certainty: every one of us will meet our end. But that has all changed. Programs like ChatGPT and OpenAI are now giving a second life to those who have passed away, and in doing so, the AI movement is uprooting our definition of what it means to be dead.

In May of this year, Chris Pelkey gave a posthumous impact statement at his killer’s sentencing. It was not Pelkey himself, but rather an AI-generated video created by using data points of his likeness. His message to his killer was simple and poignant: “in another life, we could have been friends.” Then in August, former CNN host Jim Acosta interviewed Joaquin Oliver, a young man who was killed in the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. The AI-Oliver promoted common sense gun laws and better mental health services.

But as the movement for AI replication of the deceased is catching fire, the trend should serve as a warning. For every AI advocate fighting for a righteous cause—the Joaquin Olivers and Chris Pelkeys of the world—there will be another using a dead celebrity to spin a buck. This year BBC Maestro introduced a new 11-part writing course, led by the renowned mystery writer Agatha Christie. A teaser for Maestro offers a montage of AI-generated close ups woven together with real-life video and audio of the author herself. But still, we know the truth. Agatha Christie has been dead for 49 years, and big tech is using our morbid curiosity to sell a product.

This is just the beginning. It’s reasonable to say that by 2030, we could video chat with dead grandparents, or program bots with the witty charm of a deceased spouse, or reanimate Carl Sagan to help us ponder the universe, all for a monthly subscription with limited commercial interruptions.

Aside from allowing AI to capitalize on our deepest sorrows, giving the deceased this second life will promote taking for granted the time we have with our loved ones. Death may come for us whenever it chooses, and as difficult as that is to accept, it has a profound influence on how we value the present. Imagine how flippant and careless we would become if we convinced ourselves that the end of one’s life was just a mirage, a mere transitional period between a physical life and a digital one. There would be no urgency to attend Thanksgiving this year or check in on the weekends.

Though certainly not glorious, our first experience of loss is a rite of passage. Those grieving moments after a loved one’s death forces us to contemplate our own mortality. But by preserving their likeness with AI, we are gaslighting ourselves into believing death does not exist, and therefore, we won’t think about the end as much as we should. No matter what those AI-replications tell us, when we breathe our last breath, we are irrevocably and irreversibly dead. Even if our likeness is uploaded to the ether, it won’t be us who benefits from it.

There is also the digital divide to consider. As of 2022, nearly one in four American households still did not have reliable internet service, let alone access to AI platforms. Imagine teaching our children that they can extend the life of an ailing relative—but only if their family can foot the bill. In such a stratified world, only those who cannot afford transcendence would be truly gone forever.