Writing an obituary isn\u2019t an easy task. That\u2019s an understatement \u2014 it\u2019s incredibly painful, usually expensive<\/a> too.\u00a0But someone has to do it.<\/p>\n Or perhaps not. Consider leaving it to AI.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the pitch Empathy<\/a>, a platform that provides support for families who\u2019ve recently suffered a loss, is making with the launch of its new tool that uses AI to create obituary drafts. Called Finding Words, the tool generates obits from basic info provided by family members.<\/p>\n \u201cWith the overwhelming number of tasks and emotional strain grieving families face, Finding Words allows them to worry less about the task of drafting the text for an obituary and focus more on honoring the memory and legacy of their loved one,\u201d the company wrote me in a pitch email.<\/p>\n But not everyone would agree. Offloading the work of writing an obituary to AI doesn\u2019t sound particularly sensitive, at least to my ears. Wouldn\u2019t family want to be more involved in writing a remembrance of a loved one\u2019s life? Doesn\u2019t letting AI handle the work cheapen it somehow, or feel less thoughtful?<\/p>\n I asked Empathy CEO Ron Gura.<\/p>\n \u201cMany people who experience the loss of a family member struggle to write personal and thoughtful tributes for their loved ones, for a variety of reasons,\u201d he told me in an email interview. \u201cThey may be too emotionally overwhelmed to know where to start or preoccupied by the enormous volume of administrative tasks that typically follow a loss. It\u2019s a terrible feeling to be sitting at your computer staring at a blank screen and feeling like you are letting your family and your loved one down. Any support that can guide people through this process is beneficial, and it\u2019s essential that access to such support is democratized and made available to as many people as possible; generative AI serves as an equalizer in this regard.\u201d<\/p>\n Those are fair points. So \u2014 in the interest of giving Finding Words a shot \u2014 I plugged in some dummy info and had the tool write an obit for me. (Cause of death: Grease fire. Plausible enough in New York City, I thought.)<\/p>\n Feeding Finding Words data to fuel its algorithms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The tool walks you through a questionnaire, serving prompts like the deceased\u2019s name, date of birth, date of death, location of death and last city of residence. Some questions are more specific, like \u201cShare any relevant details about the ceremony venue, date and time, or special guidelines,\u201d and pertain to different aspects of the person\u2019s life, like whether they served in the military, what people often said about them, their proudest accomplishments and your favorite memories together.<\/p>\n Many of the questions don\u2019t have to be answered, and responses can range in length from a few words to several paragraphs.\u00a0Gura says that the flow was modeled on the obituary writing services commonly offered by funeral homes and professional obituary writing companies.<\/p>\n \u201cWith Finding Words, Empathy empowers individuals by helping them work on this process themselves \u2014 and offers the service for free,\u201d he added. \u201cThe tool helps people understand what is typically included in an obituary, and prompts users to consider the sort of details, memories, and anecdotes that are essential in drafting a personalized obituary, ultimately crafting the details inputted into cohesive text.\u201d<\/p>\n Finding Words\u2019 obits might not win awards, but they were better than I expected, frankly (certainly compared to ChatGPT\u2019s<\/a> attempts<\/a>). While I kept answers to the prompts quite relatively and nonspecific in my test, the AI managed to craft them into something coherent \u2014 if a bit formulaic. (To be fair, most obits are<\/em> formulaic \u2014 to the point that a cursory Google search yields dozens of templates.) If I hadn\u2019t been told, I doubt I\u2019d suspect AI had a hand in the writing process.<\/p>\n Generative AI, including the type of text-generating AI underpinning Finding Words, has a tendency to generate untrue or otherwise<\/a> problematic text<\/a>. I didn\u2019t observe any in my testing. But in the interest of thoroughness, I asked Gura what preventative steps Empathy took, if any.<\/p>\n \u201cFinding Words is powered by an AI algorithm trained and refined by Empathy\u2019s team of developers, writers and grief professionals and is based on insights from thousands of sample obituaries \u2026 Our AI model has been trained to generate a cohesive outcome that accurately reflects whatever details users input,\u201d Gura said. \u201cWe take care to inform users that the text generated by Finding Words is fully automated and advise them to review the text thoroughly in order to verify that all information is correct.\u201d<\/p>\n The finished AI-generated obit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Will Finding Words make obit-writing services obsolete? I doubt it \u2014 those services tend to be more bespoke. But while I was tempted to dismiss it out of hand, I can\u2019t say it wasn\u2019t serviceable in my brief test. (Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, career obit writers.) With some fine-tuning, the results could be quite good, in fact \u2014 and definitely on par with some of the templates out there (and Wired\u2019s 2016 AI-written obituary<\/a> for Marvin Minsky).<\/p>\n![\"Empathy](\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/obit.png\")
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