Sharmistha Dasgupta: A Myriad Quill Canvas

I once read somewhere, “Grief is love with no place to go.”

Grieving is never a linear process. Rather it is a messy one, engulfing every ounce of spirit we have in our being. Until a few years ago, I used to think that it is only the dead whom we grieve. Navigating through my twenties has made me realise that it also encompasses bonds and relationships that we have lost, possibly forever. In other words, we grieve people and the bonds we once shared with someone, that we shall never experience again. I believe the feeling never really goes away. A part of us will continue to love them the way we did.

Separation happens for people in myriad shapes and forms. We let go of friendships, former lovers, feelings of unrequited love, requited love where there is no future, family bonds, and the list goes on.

Grief is what can be casually called a “dead end”. Suppose you are speeding your vehicle as you enter a lane, only to realise that the there is no way out there. No wonder, it can be such a feeling of stagnancy, especially with the emotions remaining unchanged.

But what happens if by some means, we manage to get a visual or auditory glimpse into an impossible reality? Does that heal the heart or maim it all the more? As humans, we are vulnerable at our core. This is the major scope that technology exploits to overrule us.

We are currently living in the epoch of artificial intelligence (AI). Almost all human labour is being aided or perhaps adulterated with AI inputs, providing it with the finesse that it would have lacked otherwise. In doing so, the raw expressions of what a human is innately, is being sacrificed. We may get shortcuts through AI, but then we are evading the non-linear process of learning via making errors. And what happens when one uses AI to process emotions, especially complex emotions like grief? Does it provide us with a shortcut to overcome the pain, or instead entrap us in a cobweb?

A significant area of research, discussions and controversy that has developed in current times is how chatbots push the vulnerable to the edge of the cliff. The debate is undoubtedly an important one. Grieving a loss is a messy process of coming to terms with it. But what happens when AI gives you a glimpse of an alternate reality where you can never actually visit? It blurs our vision of what our reality is, as we fantasize increasingly. Is feeding our fantasies truly healthy?

Over the past few days, I have been seeing how each one of us have been using Google Gemini to create images of ourselves with people whom we have lost or have parted ways. Last year in the third season of the popular Netflix web series Mismatched, we saw how when Dimple (Prajakta Koli) began to use AI to listen to how her deceased father would react to a current situation, her friends expressed concern for her mental health. Creating our desired alternate reality via technology isn’t a healthy way to cope.

A harsh stage of grief is denial. When a medium projects before us how life would be if they were there, it gives us a flicker of hope about their worldly presence in our life and keeps us stuck in an endless cycle of pain.

There is no easy way to grieve, just as there is no right way to grieve. With emotions, the easier and shorter way out is what keeps us in the loop for a longer time. By giving us what we wish for, AI only delays and lengthens our healing journey. We need to give ourselves the space to traverse through the crest of the emotion. That is the only way out.

The writer is not a mental health professional. This piece has been written solely on the basis of personal experiences and perspectives.