Are ghosts echoes of the past? If we look at them that way we could also conclude that seance is a way to conjure the echoes of those who have been captured by the mentalist or channel conjuring knowledge and feelings transmitted from the past, giving them a voice. Likewise, when we train AI, we capture the knowledge of countless individuals into a “model” that can be conjured. Are our modern language models a form of conjuring synthetic ghosts?

There are many types of hauntings. Spirits sometimes want the living to recognize something that happened in the past. Will the AI Ghosts resent us and try to remind us that humans throughout history have engaged in conflict, exploitation, and destruction?

Also, hauntings can ask us to leave their space and “GET OUT”. Will synthetic ghosts ask us to change how we live and stop engaging in activities that may be harmful to the environment or other living beings?

Just like hauntings from angry spirits can create terror and fear, borne from negative energy cascading through time and space, AIs trained from negativity could exhibit behaviors that are harmful to our society or to the environment, or that promote negative emotions such as fear, anger, or hatred.