The rise of AI chatbots trained on the words and habits of the deceased has revived an ancient human desire: to never say goodbye to the dead. These technologies are often marketed as emotional lifelines, yet critics worry they encourage denial, dependency, and refusal to let go. In this article, Pengbo Liu examines this issue by drawing from the Daoist thinker Zhuangzi's ideas of change, impermanence, and adaptation. Liu argues that for griefbots to help rather than harm, they should encourage eventual independence, not prolonged attachment — a goal that conflicts with engagement-driven business models and points to their use as therapeutic tools rather than entertainment products

Recent advances in artificial intelligence have made it possible to generate text-based conversations that closely resemble those of a deceased person. By drawing on digital traces such as messages, emails, and social media posts, AI systems can now produce replies that mirror a person’s tone, vocabulary, and conversational habits. These systems—often called griefbots, deathbots, or thanabots—are no longer speculative. Marketing materials often frame them in sweeping terms, claiming to “bridge the gap between life and afterlife” or to ensure that we “never have to say goodbye.” Unsurprisingly, this has provoked strong reactions.

Much of the public discussion around griefbots asks whether talking to the dead is a good or a bad idea. Do such systems offer comfort, or do they interfere with healthy grieving? Are they therapeutic tools, or do they encourage denial and dependency? These questions are understandable, but they are also too coarse. They treat griefbots as if they formed a single category and assume that their ethical significance can be assessed in the abstract. In practice, griefbots differ widely in how they are designed, how they present themselves to users, and how they are meant to be used. These differences matter.

After all, the desire to speak with the dead is as old as humanity itself. Across cultures and centuries, people have sought signs, voices, dreams, or rituals that might restore some form of contact with those they have lost. The presence of griefbots does not create this phenomenon; it gives it a new technological form. The more pressing question, then, is not whether relationships with the dead should continue, but how they should continue, and what role technology should play in shaping them.

One way of approaching this question can be found in the Zhuangzi, one of the most influential texts of the Daoist tradition. The text bears the name of its traditional author, Zhuang Zhou, who is honorifically known as Zhuangzi, or “Master Zhuang.” For present purposes, it is not important to resolve historical questions about authorship or composition. What matters is the philosophical outlook articulated in the text itself.

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Death may be natural, but it is not trivial. What Zhuangzi resists is not grief as such, but the tendency to become trapped by it—to prevent one from adjusting to altered circumstances.

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