If you had the opportunity to speak to the dead, would you take it? This complicated moral question is central to the new eye-opening documentary Eternal You by German-born directors Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck. With a subject not too far off from a Black Mirror episode, the film examines the disturbing rise of AI companies attempting to bring back the dead (and charge for it). It also takes a cold and distant look at many start-ups in this space and the grieving people who use their services. The chilling atmosphere of this film matches the subject matter perfectly, creating something completely horrifying yet impossible to look away from.

Grief is universal. Everyone has felt that deep pain around losing a loved one. The vulnerability that one experiences in those moments can cloud your judgment. There is a hole in the person’s life that can never be filled. This is exactly what the tech entrepreneurs showcased in Eternal You are preying on. Project December founder Jason Rohrer is shown gleefully recounting how a man used his character chatbots in an attempt to bring his recently deceased girlfriend back from the dead. Later in the film, he laughs hysterically as he tells an unsettling story of a particular chatbot spouting profanities at a grieving husband. Rohrer takes no responsibility for these models and states that what people do with the tech is out of his hands. If Frankenstein creates a monster and that monster independently wreaks havoc, is Frankenstein innocent? Rohrer and many other CEOs involved in this industry would tell you that not only is he innocent, but his intentions were pure.
Grief and spirituality have always been intrinsically linked. Religion offers human beings an existential and communal way to heal from loss. But as the digital afterlife becomes more prominent, what will happen to concepts like heaven or hell? Will the internet become heaven, or is it already a form of purgatory? Sara M. Watson, a technology critic interviewed for the film, stated that AI could slowly replace religion as “the modern form of transcendence.” Religion plays a huge role in the narrative the documentarians latch on to. Eternal You participant Christi Angel has a particularly harrowing experience when she asks her recently deceased partner if he is in heaven. His response is the opposite of what she wants to hear. The chatbot pretending to be her first love tells her that not only is he in hell, but he’s haunting her. When told about this, Jason Rohrer smugly shrugs it off, admitting that he finds the belief system is flawed. This disconnect is obvious throughout the film. Poor grieving people just looking for one last connection, when on the other side is a greedy businessman with a smile on his face.
It isn’t just about accessing heaven, this tech has given people the opportunity to play God. Justin Harrison started the tech startup YOV (YOU, ONLY VIRTUAL) in an attempt to get over the death of his mother. He is dedicated to using both data and AI to resurrect the dead. Like the other companies, he is making money, but profit doesn’t seem to be the only thing driving him. He seems to be convinced that he can rid the world of death with the power of his tech. “Fuck death!” Justin exclaims at a crucial point in the doc. He doublesd down, “It’s a current reality but I believe we can change that reality.”
Some of the companies showcased in Eternal You genuinely seem to think that what they’re doing is bettering humanity in some way. Hyunsuk Lee, whose company recreates a deceased child in front of her mother using a mix of CGI and AI, seems to not understand the criticism being thrown his way. After a very jarring sequence in which Jang Ji-Sung meets this CGI recreation of her daughter, Lee seems to be convinced that this helped her heal. Sung herself even says that this experiment ended a string of nightmares she had revolving around her grief. Stories like these make the conversation even more complicated. Will this technology be used to ease grief or to simulate a power fantasy?

Composer Raffael Seyfried creates a soundscape for this film that perfectly highlights the material’s mood. He crafts an atmosphere of sparse piano-heavy tracks infused with electronic droning that feel like an auditory technological takeover. The soundtrack of Eternal You switches from propulsive to calming seamlessly as the film switches perspectives. The empty shots of the participants staring into their grief in the form of a computer screen are highlighted by the almost human-sounding electronic sounds that infest the dreary instrumentals. This gives Eternal You a distinct sound that sets it apart from other contemporary docs.
While the subject matter allows for an endlessly intriguing experience, Eternal You isn’t perfect in its execution. Block and Riesewieck do a decent job at capturing their subject but don’t go very far into each individual story at hand. The sprawling narrative does show how rapidly the industry is growing, but as a film Eternal You can feel unfocused in its scope. The B-roll footage that is used here is well-shot and pretty to look at, It just doesn’t have much to do with the subject at hand. It comes across as amateur at times when the film should be shooting for profound. These nitpicks don’t take away from the message, but they do muddy the delivery.
Overall, Eternal You is a mesmerizing look at the bleak future of both AI and rampant capitalism. Despite a few minor technical hiccups, this is a must-watch as we enter a new age of technology. AI has been the subject of many films, but never in a form as prescient as this doc. As these tech companies continually strengthen these machine learning algorithms, Eternal You shows us how important it is to tap into our empathy and connect to the people around us.