Presented at Source Code Criticism: Hermeneutics, Philology, and Didactics of Algorithms (Universität Basel, 25-26 March 2022). Presents early investigative work into the hermeneutics of thanabots (chatbots resurrecting the dead). Note that slides are animated and do not present accurately on SlideShare. Full script available upon request.] Presentation recording: https://vimeo.com/showcase/9432046/video/697300451 Presentation discussion recording: https://vimeo.com/showcase/9432046/video/697302360

1. Grieving via GPT:
Circling Around
Cadaverous Chatbots
Dr Leah Henrickson
University of Leeds
L.R.Henrickson@leeds.ac.uk
twitter.com/leahhenrickson

3. We all talk with the dead.

4. We want the dead to give us information, provide
revelations, tell us something they didn’t know when
they were alive. We want to believe that they know
more than we do, can advise us, help us. Where are
they? Is there a God? How scared should be we? We
want to ask the dead why they did what they did. We
want them to say sorry. We want to say sorry to
them. Above all, I think, we want to believe it is
possible to talk after we die.
Dan Crowe (ed), Dead Interviews: Living Writers Meet Dead Icons (London: Granta, 2013), p. 4.

7. human-computer communication
remediation
hypermediation
resurrection
hermeneutics
meaning-making
suspension of awareness
Video: https://www.pexels.com/video/abstract-art-with-glitters-5561380

8. Shameless
Self-Promotion

9. Thanabots

10. Thanabots Context
Text

11. Context
Text
Thanabots

15. The simulation really did appear to have a
mind of its own. It was curious about its
physical surroundings. It made gestures with
its face and hands, indicated by asterisks. And,
most mysterious of all, it seemed perceptive
about emotions: The bot knew how to say the
right thing, with the right emphasis, at the
right moment.
Jason Fagone, 'The Jessica Simulation: Love and loss in the age of A.I.', San Francisco Chronicle (23 July 2021) http://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2021/jessica-simulation-artificial-intelligence.

17. https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/orx6po/im_the_guy_in_the_news_right_now_who_built_an_ai

18. The power of users’ imagination in reshaping
technologies cannot be understated. Arguing that
people tend to view computer programs as rational
entities, Finn (2016) stressed that ‘we tend to
confuse the imaginary algorithm with the real’ (p. 2).
Tay’s affordances are inseparable from the ways
users— humans—imagined Tay could be used and
their perceptions and misperceptions of what
artificial intelligence is and can be. A combination of
human and nonhuman capacities creates a symbiosis
of action.
Gina Neff and Peter Nagy, ‘Talking to Bots: Symbiotic Agency and the Case of Tay’, International Journal of Communication, 10 (2016), 4915-4931 (p. 4926).

19. Why are we engaging with these systems?
Who or what are we talking to?
What does it mean to die in a digital age?
Video: https://www.pexels.com/video/abstract-art-with-glitters-5561380

21. 👻
Dr Leah Henrickson
University of Leeds
L.R.Henrickson@leeds.ac.uk
twitter.com/leahhenrickson