I hope AI will bring Mum back to me

I was excited after reading your article last week about how AI can take your late loved one’s social media posts and turn them into a hologram that you can chat to in the kitchen.

But there’s one crucial thing the article doesn’t hook on to that it should: hope, love and yearning.

This Christmas will be five years since I lost my mum at 59 to cancer. Mum thought she had more time and, like many others facing a shortened lifespan, perhaps avoided the truth.

What it meant for my sister and I, who lost our best friend in our late 20s, is that she didn’t leave any letters, wisdom or memories to help us to keep her with us.

Grief doesn’t get easier with time. You live with it every day and it changes you as a person.

But after reading your article I felt hope that one day I might be able to see Mum smile as she listens to me again. I’ll know it’s not her, but as they say in one of the Christmas movies: what’s worse, a lie that draws a smile, or a truth that draws a tear?

While ethically it is responsible to err on the side of caution, never underestimate human desire. I’m sure this article will have drawn many questions and hope from readers like me. Victoria Nightingale

Ware, Hertfordshire