A disturbing trend is emerging from Russia’s war in Ukraine: families of fallen soldiers are using artificial intelligence to create digital simulacra of their loved ones, generating lifelike avatars that speak, gesture, and offer comfort from beyond the grave. The practice, which relies on generative AI models trained on photos, videos, and voice recordings, has drawn sharp condemnation from the United Kingdom, with Foreign Secretary David Lammy calling it “a grotesque exploitation of grief for propaganda purposes.”
But is this merely a cynical tool of the Kremlin, or a genuine attempt to cope with unimaginable loss? The answer, as with most technology, lies in the grey zone between human need and algorithmic manipulation.
These “ghost bots” operate on a simple yet haunting premise: feed an AI system enough data about a deceased person, and it can simulate their personality, mannerisms, and even replicate their voice with eerie accuracy. Companies in Russia are offering this service for around 15,000 roubles (roughly £130), promising “virtual immortality” for the war dead. Families report finding solace in conversing with these digital revenants, believing they are preserving a fragment of their departed son or husband.
Yet the darker implications are hard to ignore. The UK government has voiced concerns that these AI constructs could be weaponised to manipulate public sentiment, presenting sanitised versions of fallen soldiers that reinforce state narratives while masking the true horrors of war. “Using the dead to produce synthetic propaganda is a new low,” Lammy said in a statement. “We must guard against a future where grief is monetised and truth is buried under algorithmic fiction.”
This is not just a Russian problem. The commodification of grief through AI is a global ethical frontier we are barely beginning to explore. In the West, services like HereAfter AI and Replika already allow users to create digital memorials or chatbot companions for the living. But the context here is starkly different. When a government tacitly endorses or even sponsors such tools for families of soldiers killed in an aggressive war, the line between commemoration and propaganda blurs.
There are deeper questions too about the user experience of society. How do we design technology that respects the dead without exploiting the living? As someone who has spent years in Silicon Valley obsessing over AI ethics, I can tell you that the algorithms themselves are neutral. The problem is the intent behind their deployment. In Russia, these chatbots are not just private grief tools; they are shared on social media, rebroadcast on state television, and woven into a narrative of heroic sacrifice. The digital resurrection becomes a political act.
From a technological standpoint, the underlying systems are no different from generative models used for customer service or entertainment. They are built on huge language models trained on vast datasets, capable of producing plausible dialogue based on input. But when the input is a dead child’s voice, the output carries emotional weight that can be weaponised. There are already reports of families being urged to “interact” with AI soldiers to keep morale high, a chilling echo of the Chinese social credit system meets Black Mirror.
The UK’s condemnation is welcome, but it must be followed by action. We need international norms around the use of AI in bereavement, especially in conflict zones. Perhaps a digital equivalent of the Geneva Conventions? This is the kind of complex, urgent regulation that keeps me awake at night. Because if we don’t set boundaries now, every grieving family could become a node in a propaganda network, every digital ghost a tool for state influence.
For now, the Russian families using these services are acting out of love, not malice. They are trying to hold onto something irreplaceable in a world where war has made loss cheap. But technology is a mirror: it reflects our best and worst instincts. We must ensure that in our quest to conquer death, we do not forget the dignity of the dead.
