Father Laurent Stalla-Bourdillon warns against the development of "digital zombies," reconstructions of the deceased that reproduce their voice and image through artificial intelligence. For this religious figure, the technology nourishes an illusion that can impede the work of grief and that moves away from the Christian faith in victory over death.
The phenomenon is growing as tools capable of generating a voice or a face from existing data become accessible. Families may thus find themselves facing an artificial version of departed loved ones, able to speak to them or respond to them. Father Stalla-Bourdillon poses a central question: in whom should we place our hope after death, in a machine or in God? For him, this is not merely a technical question, but one that touches on the very meaning of life and death.
According to him, these simulacra have consequences for how the living go through the loss of a loved one. By giving the impression that the person remains present in another form, the machine risks delaying the acceptance of absence, an essential stage of grieving. He sees in this a form of denial of human finitude, which the Christian tradition does not erase but places within the perspective of the resurrection. The danger, in this reading, lies less in the technology itself than in the illusion it sustains: that of a presence that no longer needs to be welcomed in silence and prayer.
The religious figure opposes to this technological promise a hope grounded in faith. For Christianity, death does not have the last word: it is defeated by the risen Christ, and salvation does not depend on preserving a digital trace. This perspective, he recalls, offers believers a horizon that no machine can provide. It does not remove the pain of separation, but it places death within a story that goes beyond the memory of the living and the archives of data.
These criticisms are part of a broader debate on the place of artificial intelligence in relation to death, remembrance, and spirituality. They invite reflection on what technologies reveal about our relationship to loss and on how religious communities can accompany the bereaved without yielding to the temptation of artificially prolonging the presence of the departed. Father Stalla-Bourdillon's message thus joins a concern shared by many who support the bereaved, who are keen to preserve the place of ritual, of shared words, and of the time needed for separation.