四六级、考研英语同源外刊精读《新闻周刊》关于人工智能修复逝去挚爱的思考

The phone rings and for a moment everything is normal. The voice on the other end is warm and familiar⁽²⁾. They remember how you take your coffee, recall a joke you shared years ago, ask how your week has been. It sounds, in every way that matters, like your loved one. Your dead loved one.

电话铃响了，那一刻，一切都恢复了正常。电话那头的声音温暖而熟悉，他们记得你喝咖啡的习惯，回忆起多年前你们一起分享的笑话，询问你这一周过得怎么样。在所有重要的方面，这声音听起来都像你的亲人——你逝去的亲人。

This is not science fiction⁽³⁾. It is Friday afternoon and Justin Harrison is on the phone with his mother.

这并非科幻场景。周五下午，贾斯汀·哈里森正和他的母亲通电话。

Harrison is the founder⁽⁴⁾ of You, Only Virtual, a California-based startup that builds AI replicas—“versonas”—of the deceased, trained on their texts, voice recordings and digital traces. When his mother, Melodi, was diagnosed with terminal⁽⁵⁾ cancer in 2020, Harrison built one of her. He only calls it occasionally now; he says it has helped him grieve.

哈里森是加州初创公司 “虚拟真我” 的创始人，该企业依托逝者的文字信息、语音录音与各类数字痕迹，训练打造出逝者的人工智能复刻形象。2020年他的母亲梅洛迪确诊晚期癌症后，哈里森便为母亲制作了AI虚拟形象。如今他只是偶尔拨通对话，并称这项事物帮助自己走出丧亲之痛。

But the technology raises harder ethical⁽⁶⁾ questions once it moves beyond a personal experiment and into a product. You, Only Virtual offers a free text‑based version of its service, with paid tiers that unlock features such as voice calls—turning an ongoing bond with the dead into a subscription relationship. Critics argue that attaching a price to simulated access risks commercializing⁽⁷⁾ grief itself, especially when companies profit from keeping users engaged with someone they are, ultimately, meant to lose.

但这项技术从个人尝试走向商业化产品后，便引发了尖锐的伦理争议。该公司推出免费文字交互服务，还有付费套餐可解锁语音通话等功能，让人们与逝者的情感联结变成了付费订阅式关系。批评者认为，为虚拟缅怀服务定价，存在将哀思商业化的隐患，企业靠让用户沉溺虚拟逝者牟利，而人终究要直面至亲离去的现实。

“I just like knowing it’s there,” he tells Newsweek. “It’s knowing you can go there—it’s just one of the tools in my process of recovering⁽⁸⁾ from traumatic⁽⁹⁾ loss. Along with the therapy I do every Friday, and time with friends.”