Bridget's back! And AI obituaries are ruining her life - NEW EPISODE
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My dad works in B2B mar keting, but I never really knew what that meant. Then one day my dad came by my school for career day, until everyone in my class he was a big M Q L man. Then he just kept saying things like the more m ells, the Better over and over.

My friend still laugh at me to this day. I think that means marketing qualified lead. One thing for sure, i'll be known as the M Q L man's kid for the rest of my days.

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Go link coms customer to claim your credit that's linked in 点 com slash customer terms and conditions apply linked in the place to be to be。 There are no girls on the internet as a production of I heart radio and unbox creative. I am bridgett and this is there are no girls on the internet.

Looking into, there are no girls on the internet where we explore the intersection of identity, social media, technology and the internet. However, if this is your first time ever listening to the show, maybe this is not the episode to start with. I don't know if this episode is going to be representative of the overall that we have built over the last four years.

Here there are no girls on the internet. Uh, generally, the podcast does not really explore like what's going on personally with me as most listers. No a, however, I have been gone from the show since 之外 and I figured， IT, it's time to let you all the listeners in on some of what's been going on at this being a podcast.

I swear there is a tech angle to what's been going on with me. But uh, yeah if this is your first time listening, welcome. We're so excited to have you. This might not be the one to start with.

Yeah, I think that's probably good advice for people. It's gonna be little different, but budget is so nice to have you back here. Uh, thank you for recording. And um I ve got to ask how have things spent with you?

If you watch bravo's real housewives of new york, you know, when dorinda is asked, like, how are you doing not? Well, bitch at that. How i'm doing not well.

But things have been terrible. Things have been very, very bad, really. All aspects of my life, professionally, personally, socially, in all the ways that one can be bad. I am bad. I feel like people listening or like what the health going on with her yet is not been a good, not been a good summer nap in a good fall.

Yeah, I know it's been very rough a and I really commend you for wanting to get back on the mike talk to listeners about what's been going on with you and that, you know, I know a lot of listeners have britain with concern expressing their support, which was very nice. But so where do you want to start? Do you want to just take us through chronologically or something else?

I'll just jump in. And so on the forth of july, I on the fourth of july, I had a great fourth of july when caging celebrated all the stuff that people do, global blood. The next day, I got a call from my mom saying that my dad had had a pretty bad fall down the stairs.

People who have been following me for a while, like back in the stuff I ever told you days, might recall that my dad is disabled. LED has had A A whole host of like rony health issues um you know he had strokes in the past so this was not holy new territory for for us as a family. But IT IT was so pretty rough news.

He bit on the stairs. My mom heard a loud crash, came dow stairs. He was on the ground SHE called me when one the whole works.

The day after that was my brother and sister law. They were having a baby shower in richmond, Virginia, because they are expecting twins. They since have had these twins, so there are twin me, and if you out on the world, which is great.

So I came home. I was already planning on going to see my family to be at this baby shower. I went to the baby shower was a lovely time. Saw my mom there, my brother there or my family there after the baby shower was wounding down my mom guy in her car to drive to the house ital to see my dad because he was still hospitalized from that fall.

Maybe an hour later, I excuse myself in the baby shower, also got on my car, drove to the hospital to meet my mom and my dad, uh, met up in my dad's hospital room. You know, my dad was, you know, he was in OK condition, like was talking alert, know had had had had some like medical stuff going on, but like, I was happy to see him and happy to see that he was like doing, I thought, like more or less fine, spent a couple of hours visiting with him in the hospital. My mom, also my brother, soon there, after the baby shower wrapped up and he made us at the hospital for the entire family at the hospital.

All in all, that was like a fairly Normal day. And I remember thinking, well, I was so worried about my dad and that fall, but he actually seems like he's gona be OK. He seemed pretty stable and silent.

The next day I go visit my dad in the hospital, I was surprised that my mom had not made IT. So i'm sort of like waiting around for her like, where's mom? Where's mom? And I tell my dad that I know, like I haven't heard from Normal day, he's like that usual.

You should have your brother go check on her. And he did go check on her, and he had passed away. He died very unexpectedly. The last time I saw her was we were in the hospital with my dad, and I had walked her to her car. And I guess I feel sort of great hole that the last thing I said to her, I remember the moment, like very clearly, it's like very much burned into my memory at the last moment that he had with my dad was quite tender, like they hugged and they kissed and you embraced and that I walked to her car and that our last moment was tender like I think I said I love you and i'm grateful that that's what I said is the last thing because I certainly had no idea that that that was going to be the last time that I ever saw her alive.

You know that but he so so terrible, uh, I think to be with your dad in the hospital, you know, very concerning, fall like he was in the hospital and then to lose your mom unexpectedly ly like two days later. That's like a level of tragedy that I think many, if not most people never experiences so like so much. And so I just wanted to to ask for the listener's benefit. Like was, did your man have a lot of health problems with this lake, something that was kind of expected? Uh, or or was IT more out of the blue.

completely out of the blue? My mom know I just turned seventy, so which was a big milestone birthday for her. In the scheme of things, seventy is quite Young, and so SHE didn't have like major health complications.

I will say the day the last day that we spent together, the day of my brother's baby shower, was like a just a horribly hot day in Virginia. Ia um IT was like triple digits. You know, I was having difficulty and being out about that day.

I remember, I remember notably, IT was like the hottest day of the summer and IT was so hot. And I remember thinking like, I onder if they're going to count the baby shower because it's so hot. Unfortunately, it's a long story, but we were unable to do an autopsy.

So I will never really know what happened. Which you know was difficult for media except that. But in some ways, IT doesn't matter.

I guess I i've come to of that conclusion that i'm definite the kind of person who would really like perseverate that the right word perseverate on the details in the why and the how and the like. Could this have been prevented? And I that definitely like a way that I cope.

And in some ways it's OK that I, I, I, I has to be OK. I've had to have made peace with the fact that i'll never know what happened, and you know that that is how I has to be. But when I say I was unexpected, like my mom, 嗯， SHE had really like a ring camera, even though, no, we, how much do I rail against those? My mom did listen to the show, so he didn't hear we had to say about ring.

So SHE had one. And the last thing that he did was that he called to order delivery, like dinner delivery hood. And, you know, he calls the order in on her phone because we now have that. You see that a delivery driver come to her door, not on the door, to wait around, knock again, wait around. SHE doesn't answer.

So in between her calling to order food when SHE got home after the last night that I saw at the hospital SHE, you know that past, and, you know, as horrible as I was, I guess the way that i'm trying to cope is really look for the bright sides and the positive, because the situation was so horrible, that is the way that I can do. And so yeah, there are positives. You know that he spent her last day with her whole family.

You know, SHE did not appear to have been in any pain that goes, not like he had a fall. SHE was in her, in her favorite chair, like when we found her at first, know IT looked like he was just to sleep. So SHE wasn't, you know, IT wasn't like he was like face down on the floor, something which is something that i've sort of been clinging to but yeah was very deeply unexpected.

I was an informed of this by my brother at the hospital. I didn't tell my dad. I ran out of the hospital, one of his nurses, who, by the way, a theme of this episode might be, like, shed out to nurses, nurses, our Angels, because every hero of the story has been a nurse.

They'll get to that later. But yeah, my dad's nurse was like, oh my god, I like, collapsed in the hospital hallway and SHE held me and helped me get up and was choose, I don't tell your dad, just go rush home. Found her.

I don't know if anybody out there has ever found a loved one dead, but IT sticks with you. I guess I just put IT that way. It's very difficile that something I wish and I would ever wh on my worst stene my it's really hard. That's the thing you ever like.

Forget yeah, I can't imagine how difficult that must have been. You know I think you have focus on like trying to focus on some of those positive things that I mean, I had no idea, but that seems seems like a positive thing to think about. And you know think the fact that that sounds like he went quickly without pain. I think that is something that when i've had people close to me die often they they haven't had that and and I wished that they had. So I think that truly is something.

Well, spoiler alert, because I get to experience, i'm that special. I'm that special that if you ve ever wondered, like, well, what I rather has my loved one die unexpectedly ly without any pain in her sleep very quickly, or have them stay away from a disease for which there is nokia. Slowly, bit by a bit, I got to tell you both are bed. I am experiencing both as we speak spoiler later for how terrible the last few months have been.

Yeah so I I definite want to come back to your mom because I had the opportunity to meter SHE was an amazing person and I A love to you, by the way oh uh, so I just want to come back to her. But let's complete the stories. So like what are you talking about that you've gotten to experience both?

Well, as I mentioned, my dad was in the hospital when this happened, and when I left his room, I did not tell him that my mom had died because that sounds well to say. But I genuinely did not believe I was not until I saw her that I started to believe IT and believe IT or not even a little bit after I like, wasn't sure was like, maybe something will happen once he was like, in a casgar. I was a good case.

You probably, this probably is what's happening. But like, but like, that is how unexpected this was to me. So, you know, I went home, was talking to my family, and we decided that we had to go back to the hospital the next day and breaks the news to my dad.

And as hard as that, once for me, my dad had IT worse. I really feel for my dad. So we had to break the use to him in the hospital that, you know, we'd seen my mom for the last time.

And from there, IT was like, something turned off in him. IT was like, and maybe people who have been end, there was something like this can try in and let me know. Apparently IT is not uncommon, but IT was like a light somewhere in my dad turned off.

And since my mom passed away, my dad has continued to get worse and worse. He since that David, he was admit to the hospital on the fourth of july, he has not walk. Since then, he has been in either a hospital or we have facility back to hospital, back to rehab, back to hospital. He has not gone home. He has not spent a single solitary moment, not in a facility of some kind since then.

And so just a chain. Um so we're recording this on november first and he entered on july forth. So that's that's right.

Months and they give you a sense, like a week before my dad was hospitalized in july, I had had lunch with him in fetal expert origination. And so he got into his car, drove himself the hour and change away to friday, walked in to the restaurant. We had a totally Normal, you know, no flags were raised.

It's not like, so my dad went from, like, a pretty independent person who had chronic health chAllenges had this fall. And then I was like, once, once you heard about my mom, IT will yeah, I do what I can describe IT as like something turned off in him and so he has continued to get worse and worse and worse. He is currently hospitalized.

Um I have really spent most of my time since july with him. It's yeah it's just been hard to like i'm still very much in this and you know, my mom has passed away. My dad is not doing well. I have been living in kind of various hotels and urban bees in Virginia to be with him. Shut out to an amazing nonprofit in richmond, Virginia, ia called doorways because they provide low cost accessible housing that is near where my dad is hospitalized. If not for them, I I don't know what I would do like I would I spend all my money trying to be enriched debi with him um because he can't walk, can't really speak, need someone to be advocating for him and that person is me and so yeah it's been that's really been my life for the last few months um but I do want to a back up because I said that this story had a tack angle I meant IT yeah .

that's right. You said there's a tech angle so and again, I want to get to hearing about your mom but what is what's a tech angle in this story?

Well, so the day that my mom passed away was july seventh that was the day that we ve found her um less than twelve hours later. Imagine my surprise when a bitch wary is published and goes some I viral on social media about my mom. Now you may be asking, oh, did someone in your family write a subtitle ary like very early on and submitted.

That's what we thought, right? And IT makes sense that you would be thinking that, but that is not what happened. So less than twelve hours after we found my mom's dead body in her house, before we had ever even informed my own father comma, her husband come a her next of kin of her death.

Imagine my surprise when I game A I O bitchy pirate piece of shit. Media, whatever you want to call the website, publishes a badly written hacky, full of errors, full of in cd's ads obbo ual, for my mom, this was before we had a chance to go to the hospital to talk to my dad. This was before we had informed the entirety of our family.

This was truly, even before I had really like internalized what had happened. This had already gone viral on facebook. Now I should say, I will call my mom kind of a local celebrity in our town.

My mom was a really respected and distinguished pediatrician. And basically, if you were like a black person in in richmond, SHE was probably your p attrition or you knew somebody who he was, their vector SHE has been in private practice for decades. And so generations and generations and generations of of people have been treated by her.

I would say that he is kind of a town hero. Like when I would go out to dinner with her, go to the mall with her people, I am not kidding. And this is not, this is not just like the rosy shame that i'm putting on her because he was my mom.

This is like, like, I mean, this literally people would run out of shops to hug her for saving their lives. I've seen this happen multiple times on multiple different oudin. People have run from inside shops to hug her.

And you saved my daughters life. You saved my son's life. You saved my sister s life, right? So my mom, what is he? A public figure? And I think that was a little debatable.

However, SHE SHE was somebody that had a profile in my town i'll put in that way. And so here's what I think happened in from the technical side. So my mom was a doctor who was, like, known for never canceling appointment.

He loved what he did. He was a really hard worker. I think that when waves and waves of appointments are you getting cancelled, rumors start flying. That something has happened to her. Because the demographic that SHE serves in richmond is also a demographic that is like heavy on facebook.

If you searched ed, my mom's name on facebook, IT is like thousands and thousands and thousands of people who are being like, what's going almost with my mom? What's going on with her? What's going on with her? You know, if SHE alive, if he okay, that a lot, lot of looking into this, sure.

What I think is going on for metrology employed, I think that people who are running scammy A I orbital ary shops online are closing IT when someone's name is enjoying a boost from search, when people are searching for someone's name a lot, what are using someone s name a lot on social media. And that's how they determine we're going to cook up an A I generated a bitch vary for this person, and that is exactly what they did. So i'm my kidding.

I knew he was gone for less than twelve hours when this piece was published. And when I was published, IT went wildly viral on facebook to the point where people that I had not spoken to in years, people I certainly didn't tell what was going on. We're texting me, sending me willing to the orbital being like, oh my god, I heard about your mom.

I'm so sorry, right? And so mind you, we hadn't talk to my dad yet. I mean, I guess like depending on how you look at me, luckily my dad was not in a position where he can be scrolling his phone.

Had my dad had his phone, he absolutely. We've heard the news about the death of his wife from facebook. There is no way that he would not have the saving Grace is that my dad in his state was not able to have his phone and be looking at his phone. How to add access to his phone. That is how he would have found out of about his wife passing away, not from his kids, not from his family. Have to pause there because, like, even talking about IT now, IT makes me want to form IT IT IT like IT fills me with such rage and discussed for my fellow human that IT makes me, I mean, you know, you report on tech arms for four years and then they happen to you and you can't believe the the the privity in the depth that people will go for to generate a quick buck online.

Yeah, it's truly despicable. I think there are a lot of different perspectives in society. People have different values. But I think one thing that pretty much every human i've ever met like hasn't common is that everybody recognize that when you lose a close member of your family, that's hard. And there should be some respect given.

And to take that kind of event and just turn IT into more S, C, O, jump to drive, click. Whatever the scam was to monetize this event to you was like one of the most difficult things you have ever been through. And to them is just like another another data to monetize. IT really is despicable and highlights like the worst of the ways that technology can harm us.

This was the worst day of my life, was the day that I found my mom's dead body in her house. Every day since then has been a living nightmare from which there is no waking up. And I will not rest until the people who have monotoned this day of mine lose everything.

This is like it's buckin war with me. I will never be over this IT will be, I will. I will go to my grave shaming these people and talking about this and speaking about this.

So this is not over by a long shot. Uh, I have some names, one of the show here later on. But yeah, i'm coming up for all of you people. So I hope you're fuck and ready. Let's take a quick break.

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At our back.

So you said, you want to to circle back talking about my mom. So let's do that. Because anybody who knew my mom met my mom ever experiences, my mom will tell you that he was a force like, again, this is not missing this because I am her daughter, although I do have a special affinity for her, obviously.

But my mom was born into object poverty in rural Virginia as an SHE, worked in farms, you know, as just like a farmhand bouts from family to family and Foster care, working on farms in a rural Virginia. SHE was born with nothing SHE worked her way up with at the top of her school in college, top of her classes in in medical, became probably the top rated pediatrician in our town, right the day that he died. The week after that, the whole family was meant to be going to Virginia beats to watch or get, I know, a massive award for pediatric right.

My mom has been on national spotlight. She's been on the today show talking about the work that she's done for childhood era. Y SHE is an amazing person who has had a dynamic and multi fasted life story.

Anybody who has met her could tell you what a colorful person SHE was, what a smart person SHE was, what a funny person SHE was, what a warm person what he was, what a passionate person SHE was, what an a petite person SHE was like. SHE was like a person who lived in full color, right? The thing that pisses me off the most about this, A I O bitter, that they published about her, is that it's so generic and so flat.

They say, oh, he was a pediatric. He was specialized in children's medicine. Or what the fuck else with a pediatric specializing? That's like saying he was a firefighter who was specialized in flames.

Obviously, he specialized children's medicine. The way that it's written. IT is the most A I generated flat piece S A bullet I have ever read in my life. And IT is so deeply offensive to me.

If a human was sitting down to write an arbitrary about my mom, there are so many things that you obviously would have included the a bit the first orbital that was publish because there was a handful of them did not include one single detail. IT was all vigorous. yeah.

And you know, I know we have a lot of Younger listeners who maybe have not yet had the experience of having a close loved one die. And to USA congratulations, keep writing that way as long as you can, but IT is coming. And when IT does, you will realize the orbital aries are important.

Uh, I don't know. I I personally didn't really think much of them until my grandparents passed few years ago, and I was very close with them. I personally wrote the orbital aries and IT was a really meaningful thing for me, and I think something meaningful for my family. And I just really like IT means a lot to have an arbitrary that does reflect to the person was in their life. And yet the thing of having that taken away able to make my blood boil.

oh, my blood is boiling, my friend, my blood is boiling. And IT is even worse that I am not alone. So IT turns out that this kind of practice is actually common place, and it's been going on for a while.

IT has been made worse by the proliferation of A I funeral homes have actually been fighting orbital ary sm, orbital pirates, whatever you want to call IT, for fifteen, twenty years. But it's really taken off with technology. I actually was interviewed for an article in best company after this happened.

The article i'll link IT in the show notes, but it's like almost divulged for me to read because when I was interviewed, I was still very much I mean, i'm still in the thick of IT now, but I was like really, I think of IT then. And in the interview, I feel like I come off as like unwell and I was unwell, like I I really was, you know, I had just buried my mom. I had, and this was totally unexpected.

I was literally sleeping in my dad. I see you room for a month. So like his room has a couching. And I was he's celling up on my couch that ari was living for a literal months.

I was dealing with all of his health stuff, talking to doctors every day, trying to figure out how to know, you know, my mom, that unexpected, this to figure out all of her like a state stuff. Her will like all of this, like incredibly complicated stuff. Funeral arrangements, so that we had never talked about, which were going into that minute.

But I was just struggling. I was, I was on well so it's almost hard for me to go back and article, my god, like I was really in but yeah, when someone is going through one of the most difficult times for me, IT wasn't just one of the most IT was the most difficult of my entire life. Having there be arbitrary pirates who are capitale zing off of that and adding to that, I wanted to die IT just was really hard.

And you know, what made IT worse was that the AI generated orbital wearies hit the internet very quickly and went viral on facebook very quickly. And so when our family actually submitted a real Victory written by my art room through that, a beautiful job, a when that was submitted to the general home and put online for a while, the AI generated orbital ary I still had more reach, like when you google my mom's name, plus arbitrary, the ones that were written by her family with actual information, not to mention, you know, no inaccuracies, because the A I generated one's had an accuracies. Those were not as high up on google for a time as the ones that were bulls shit.

And so, you know, you were talking about how orbital aries matter. They matter for so many reasons, not the least of which is, you know, the orbiter's written by our family had information about the services, information about how you could connect with the family. I go on to these, you know, A I SCI sites and there are real people who my mom actually knew leaving condolences.

They don't know that that that has that our family didn't author ized that they didn't put that up, right? And so that's just a logistical reason as to why these are so mess up. But you're right, orbital aries matter, orbital aries IT IT matters when someone passes away, the act of writing and orbital ary is important.

And you you know you you write them for other people, you write them for humans. You don't write them to generate money, and you don't take away someone's right to mourn their mother the way that they want to do IT. You don't take that away from them.

That was stolen from me other than my close family. And like my close, close circle of friends, I didn't tell anybody. My mom passed away and they all knew, they all knew from that.

A I bullshit. I can't even express what that feels like. Like I feel like I was robbed at the opportunity to to more.

And my mother, on my own terms, grieving is hard enough having to grieve in this digital fish ball. Is this? I can't even describe what that fault like. I'm still, i'm still not over, but you will never be over IT.

And, you know, I IT is distinctly remember having this moment, maybe an hour after my family met at my dad hospital room to tell him that my mom had died, where IT was, me, my brother, my sister in law, my aunt, my mom, sisters, and somebody had sent one of the AI generated orbital aries to my arts. And we all had this moment where we were like, who publish this, who who submitted this. And I don't want to say we were like accused in each other, but IT was a tense moment.

IT was a moment of like, who, in this very close circle of, like, friends and family, went to the media and come to find out none of us did. That was just a, just a thing that was taken from us by scammers. And so yeah, that was a moment on top of the worst moment of my life that we didn't need as a family.

We already had a up on our plate as a family. And yeah, the fact that this is a common practice is just unacceptable. Here's here's A A bit from the fast company article that I was quoted in A I didn't say this, but this was what the journalist route A I generated orbits are now filling the web, marking a new chapter in the quest to monopolized grief.

Many of these sites, turning out AI generated content, exploited the dead, are based in asia and appeared to be run solely to generate ad revenue. Uh, as I said, my mom was a bit of A I don't know the color of celebrity, but like he was, he was a unknown entity in our town. However, best company also spoke to people who didn't have any kind of public profile for whom these scheme I rags still published A I orbital aries for in some cases, the person is not even really dead.

A journalist wrote a piece about the anxiety that SHE experiences while driving on L. S. Three ways. And he told CNN that he believed that the Spike in online traffic attached to her name from that he's being published is why scammers decided to say that he died on the internet.

They're hoping that that little Spike in traffic attached to her name means that more people will click on the original, which will lead to monetary revenue for whoever was putting that up. But SHE wasn't dead. In fact, he was sitting in a hospital room helping a friend through surgery when her phones started blowing up.

Because these video was at A I generated news, anchors were talking about how he died in a car crash, SHE said. I was sad reading your own no biterres as a surreal experience. After speaking with experts, I was scared for myself, for all journalists and for our society. And yeah, i'm also scared. Yeah, IT is scary.

You know, one of the things that that you mention that was a talked about in some of those articles that you share IT ahead of this recording was the idea that these orbital ary pirates have been doing this for twenty years, maybe a little bit longer. And so IT IT IT does seem like a good example of the sort of harm that is been ongoing, a sort of that enabled harm that has really been like turbo charged with A I to allow them to turn these out so much faster and more cheaply.

exactly. But even the ones that are not necessarily A I generated are still pretty creepy. Kate nibs, over at wired, reported on how youtube ers are modifying this practice by just summarizing a bitch aries of dead strangers in videos.

Somebody was upset enough by this after watching strangers make videos, hastily summarizing a good friend's death that they reached out to her. SHE writes, sometimes these orbital youtube ers promote products in the video description like a two hundred and twenty five dollar vitamin c cream for sale on amazon. Sometimes they just list strings of S O, beating keywords like death, cause of death, die, R, I, P, what happened? While each channel differ the next and small ways, there's a unifying aesthetic.

Everything looks rushed and careless. There is no hint of emotion or acknowledged. They're discussing someone's greatest tragedy.

And as you said, mike, this is not new. Funeral homes have been dealing with arbitrary aggregator sites for fifty and or twenty years. This is from courtney Miller, chief strategy officer at mk j marketing, who specializes in funeral services.

SHE says that the sites troll news articles and local funeral home websites looking for initial death announcement that has basic details like name, age and where a service might be held. They then see great. And we published that scale using templated formats or today, increasingly A I tools. So basically these people are just exploited seo and like google trends and things like that. S O expert Chris silver Smith says there's a whole new strategy in search drinkings, and I believe it's based off of getting information that someone has died and seeing there's a little bike in traffic, perhaps in a specific region for that person's name, and rapidly optimizing and publishing articles about the person to get these tribes of search traffic.

Tribes of search traffic is such a like to miniato term, but that feels correct here. Like IT, it's hard to imagine that they're making any sort of serious money off any individual orbital ary. And I I guess it's really like the scale of IT that allows this to be a fruitful enter surprise for these scammers to take people's lives and flatten them down in this way, almost like turn people's death into a commodity. Like what what is the business model there is at that?

Well, pretty much exactly that. They just are playing on this surge of interest in keywords related to death like my mom's name, and they just pumped out low effort content to try to capitalize on that flow of web traffic. It's really a number's game.

And I think that's why I kind of like has to be so low effort, because I don't think that anybody was making a lot of money individually from my mom's A I B S orbital. But if you do IT people, if you crank out and crank out and crick out and aggregate, you can probably make some money. And orbital aries really are big business, a wired peace called as a morbid war over online.

Orbital aries from twenty twenty one describes this company, echo via. These people are basically a ring of orbiter's scammers. So companies like ecover ta, they take the scheme of a step further.

So echo veto was sued by service corporation international, which is like a of fifteen hundred funeral homes, and they alleged that the company was scraping details from robitaille ies written by family members from funeral home websites and just republishing them. Quote, mining people's personal data at the lowest point in their lives is disappointing, a spokesperson for the funeral conclave, m. IT, told wired in an email.

So ecosia makes money through prompting to connect mourners with flower delivery services or other like funeral services that they then profit from. But wait, i'm sorry, did I give these fucking goals permission to profit financially from my mom's death? No, I fucking didn't.

I've never talked to these people. I don't know these people. And yet, when I searched their sm enterprise website, what do you know? There is my mom's name.

There is my mom's information next to these, like in city scammy pop up ads are like, oh, for thirty dollars, you can plan a tree in honor of my mom. Also, side note, my mom would have hated of that. He would have thought that was so hacky SHE would have never approved that. I didn't prove that yet on their website. These goods are making money off of my dad, mother, without anybody in my family's permission.

So terrible and like big money, like you said, right? So according .

to a peace about another law school against ecover, ta, the company has an option for people to claim an orbital al, right? So I could provide documentation to ecosia proving that my mom is my mom. And if I did that, I could then take a cut of whatever profit they make from flowers in candles or whatever else.

But i'm sorry, that is just gross. Why should I have to prove to you that I am my mother's daughter? You a stranger that I have not provided to have anything to do with me or my family? Why do I need to provide documentation to you to prove anything? Who gave you permission to have my mom's name on your sm website .

and how generous of them to give you some undefined cut of the charge? Key sales?

I'm not even sure that people would actually get the flowers or the tree is actually planted because according to the trust pilot reviews in ecover, ta the flowers that people are sending the money to buy might not even show up, and the company is just like pocketing the money.

Here's one review from trust pilot quote, these are leach companies that take a bitch areas from legitimate unit al homesite and post them on their own sites to profit from the orbital ary is off and accurate. They are just trying to sell trees eeta without permission or authorization ation from their families. They just did this to us on the loss of my fourteen year old grandson. Our fund director is made several attempts to stop this, but always hits a dead in. I have warned everyone we shared our orbiter's with, and I am writing a letter to the secretary of state.

It's kind of surprising that they are still doing this with impunity, given stories like that from a grandmother who sounds like she's pretty mad, listening to you sounds like you're pretty mad. I wouldn't want to be the focus on that ire.

Oh, eo veta CEO poco. Look, clerk, your name is going to be on my lips and on my fingers for the rest of both of our lives. I am onna beyond your ass like White on the rice.

You will never shake me. My family is own apology. I am getting that apology, rest assured. Also fun facts about ecosia is like, I mean, you know mike, you know I love reading when there's like a review site and somebody leaves a bad review and the owner comes on to be like, that's not true. You did get those chicken fingers as blow.

If you go on to the trust pilot reviews for ecover ta somebody, I assume that ecosia C E O paco clerk is arguing back with everybody. So we have all of these people being like, these people are schemers. They are trying to profit off the death of my child because people are goods.

And then you have the owner or somebody replying to each review, being like, that's not true, our legitimate business. You're lying. If you find yourself arguing back with dozens of people who are who are accusing you angry of scamming and making money from their dead family members.

Give IT up. Like what point are you? What point just take us back back and be like i'm either goal here. Am either one in the wrong here so that once you're arguing with multiple people who are who are grieving the ashok is you poko?

Yeah that does seem like IT should be a pretty clear signal that like maybe one needs to take a look at what they are doing if they are engaged in lots of online disputes with grieving family members. correct.

So let's talk more about our friend peco poco look, clerk, owner of ecover. Ta so look are claims that his company, their mission is a virtuous. He's just informing the public of recent deaths of the public service.

He says that anybody can publish a bitch rates on his website for free and says, quote, in reality, the funeral home should never be the owner of an arbitrary. The orbital arry's purpose is to share information with the public. So in my case is IT pogo's job to inform my ill father of the unexpected death of his wife of forty years.

Is IT pokers job, or is IT his family's job? Because I feel like my dad isn't even who poko fucker is, and he needs to stay out of IT this idea that he is doing a virtual public service and that the public has a right to know when someone passes, if you've ever had them as fortunate. Having to barry a loved one, especially unexpectedly, IT, is very difficult.

And IT is nobody's business but the family and the grieving person to decide how and when that information is striving. Ted, what is this idea that when somebody dies automatically, the higher public has to be informed? Like i'm telling you, IT is such a Charless way of robbing the grieving from what should be an intimate process that they can work out on their own as a family. Nobody has the right to sleep in and inform the public before the family is even ready to do that. And they certainly shouldn't be doing IT to make a quick book like peco poco.

a clerk is truly the testing.

Yeah, he's a role piece of shit. More after a quick break.

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Let's get right back into IT.

So you might .

be wondering, how did I covetous come to be well before ecosia? There was a company called after life that was shattered after a ruling, a twenty million dollar ruling against them, pivoting the orbital aries and pictures of dead people in order to profit from grieving families.

I have to say, the judge, in this case, federal court judge Catherine, came really laid down model, and he said that the reason he was being so intense was because he thought that her behavior was high handed, reprehensible and marked a departure from standards of decency. And so he was like, I need to, like, make an example of so they will never, never do this again. Get a load of this quote that poco gave to the globe after the judges of ruling on after lives.

So afterlives unlike ecover ta ecover to at least uses A I A kind of the orbital arries just enough so they sound a little bit difference. So it's like not totally just explicit copy and pasting after lives was just that touching a bitch ary that you wrote for your grandfather mike, they would just have a copy based on that bad boy steal a picture of your grandfather from your facebook, put IT up there at a link to buy a tree that maybe between you and me nobody would ever get pocket the money and fucking profit and then bouts to the next one. How would you feel about that?

Also I wouldn't like .

IT no so IT might not surprise you to find that that is um against the law but after that twenty million dollar ruling which shutdown after life this is the quote that our friend paco stand up guy gave to the globe. Quote, the day we heard that publishing orbital aries on the internet, similar to that of newspapers and using photos and original text was unacceptable, we stopped Operating. The company told me, why would you think that stealing the photos of dead strangers is an acceptable way to make money in the first place.

and that he would understand this other company that, like, does the same thing, but a little bit different, so that he can avoid copy rated fringe's.

right? Yes, yes, exactly that. And so the new company, ecover ta IT, is a big business.

Pao says that he, this company has generated five million dollars in revenue off of people's bituminous in twenty twenty alone, much like afterlives, the company that was shattered after that twenty million dollar ruling. Elivated takes commissions on flowers, candles and tree sales. The open difference is he's not republishing or stealing.

The orbital varies were beating and pictures of dead people. He sort of pulling information from other arbitrarily. So there's a little bit of grail area and then profiting off of them. But still often times of those abbat's aries are incorrect or have incomplete information.

Going back to the AI generated orbital ery about your mom, IT was talking how they could cramp so little information into so many words. I just really was like, so vague. As a little experiment, I asked ChatGPT to write me a five hundred word obituary for a beloved p.

Nutricia from richman. And IT was almost identical. That flattening that you talked about. I think, you know, this phenomenon does highly a lot of the tech stuff that we've talked about for years.

And I think one of them is how technology has a tendency to just flattens. Uh and like you said, for these obbo varies. Just harvest what's available, make up what isn't and then just turn out some chm.

Exactly one of the people also interviewed for that fast company article talked about losing his father and his father had Better a service member. And in the AI generated version of his, his dad, orbital ary IT. Is this like that? They made up award that he never won.

They made him a more decorated veteran than he was. And he was like, my dad was a great guy, but I can see where the A I I try to like jazz. This story.

And I guess that sort of goes back to what you were saying, is that orbit uses are for humans, therefore the living to brief people that we love. They are a record for how we lived, who we were, how we loved, who loved us, who knew us. Writing an obbo ary for somebody is an intimate, special act.

IT is adding to the public record of who they were. I don't want to live in a world where it's just another way for a tech dush to make money. I don't want to live in a world where my moms beautiful, colorful, full, dynamic, crazy life is just flattened ed out.

So people like poco, a clerk, can get a nick in their bank account. That is not the world I want to live in. Grieving and death is hard enough.

absolutely like that. Judge said he read from and violates basic ideas of decency. Somebody had to do something yet.

Well, pog luker k says, quote, I want to use technology to become a disrupter of the industry, meeting the funeral industry park. Look, clerk, I don't know you. We have never met.

I don't want my mom's death and my grieving process to be a pitt. Stop on your disruption of the funeral industry. I don't give a fuck about your disruption.

You have no right to be exploiting grieving people using technology. This is what kills me about this person. Is that he the way that he speaks in these interviews? I would almost result more if he was like, yeah, and a scammer.

It's a scm. It's if I do enough times, I make a quick buck. That's why i'm doing IT. It's a financial scamp. At least I will be like, okay, he's being honest.

The thing that kills me is that because IT has to do with technology, he wants to exploit my dad, mom and my family for a money and also be seen as a tighten of industry for doing IT. He wants to be seen as a thought leader for doing IT. He is a scammer.

If I took a picture of poco look clerks, dead family member and screen printed on A T shirt t and started selling IT down on fourteen street, you will call me a scammer, right? That's a scm. If I did that, that permission, because IT involves technology, he believes that there is some kind of a disruption as supposed to what IT is, which is a violation.

And I refuse to live in a world where somebody can exploit me and my mom and my family for money, for their financial gain, against my will, without my permission, and also have the goal to see himself as a good visionary, not on my watch. So again, this is that be the last time we talk about pucker. Look, clerk, pocket. Look clerk, I am your new biggest fan, and talk about you every funk in week. Get used to IT our bridges.

So how do you want to land this plane? Do you to circle back to your mom? You want to talk you about your dad. You want to share what you've learned about going through this process that might help listeners who or they're going through IT or maybe aren't going through IT yet, but see IT coming down the pike.

Oh my god, what can I say? I would say everybody listening to this, if you have parents in your life, loved ones, older folks, my mom died unexpectedly and none of her affairs were in order. I'll put IT that way and it's made everything much harder.

And yeah, I would say if you are avoiding a tough conversation with your mom, your dad or your aunt about what their end of life plans look like, have the conversation because you're onna be dealing with that one way or the other one route is it's gonna hard regardless. So you got to decide if you want to, to have that conversation and get affairs in order now and have to be regular, hard or hard, hard. That's once.

So end of life care plans, whatever needs to be arranged. I really implore people to make those arrangements while you can because it's very difficult to make them otherwise. Take IT for me yeah I would also say like I am still very much in IT if I sound not like myself that's because I am not myself and I don't know if myself this ever coming back this might be a permanent change for me and um yeah I just as hard as everything was.

I think the feeling of having my grief be exploited like I don't think I ever really got to privately grieve my mom and grieve my dad to be onest with you and like really sort of grieve what happened to my family. There's a ba, a real lack of intimacy. I can't quite describe the feeling of being in the a digital fish while while you're going through something as hard and intimate as grief.

That was really invasive, I have to say. Like I really kind of shut down when those A I orbital aries hit social media. I was not yet ready to talk about happening and I had to talk about IT because people were texting me about IT and asking me about IT because of these obbo uarts. And so like, I didn't even want to post my own kind of private tribute to my mom because of all of this. I I like, I really still haven't.

Because the time that I would have done mat, I was dealing with this, right? I was like trying to find where these plate, where these A I orbiter's pilots were based and trying to get things taken down off of the internet and all of that, right? So I felt very exposed, and IT was very hard.

I am still very much in IT. So this is not, this would have like, ending of like and know everything's okay. Everything is terrible for me, and I don't know when it's gonna Better.

But I would say the thing that I have learned from all of this is that when we talk about things like A I IT really does matter her, right? Like orbital al varies matter. Some things are for humans.

Some things are, there are things that connect us to our humanity. There are things that connect us to the experience of being human. All of us is going to die.

I'm so sorry to say this. But everyone listening right now, if you have not already, you are going to be bearing a parent or someone that you know and love. And that is a universal that is that going that connects us and makes us all human.

And so we got to decide whether this this thing that connects us to our humanity is a thing that we are going to allow tech companies and tech leaders to exploit, to make money for themselves against our will. And I think that this is, I am, I am, if I am, ever put A A light in the sand, I am doing IT. Now we have to fight this.

Nobody wants to live in a world where when you lose somebody, this is acceptable, let alone come in place. I will not stand for IT. I don't think any of us should stamp this.

Nobody deserves to live in that world. That is not a world that I want to live in. All right.

All right. Well, so what we're going to be back here again next week to talk about a let's see what's up next on the agenda poker.

I'll save this peco pogo, a clerk, get in touch with me. I want to hear from you. I want to talk to you.

I know what to be on your matter soon. However, if you come to me, we can, we can deal with this. I'd have you on the show.

We can talk whatever you want to a do, but this is sort of your window. I am going to be a problem for you, mark my words. And anybody knows him, you can send them this episode. I'm going to be a problem for you one way or another. Make IT easy for yourself by getting in touch with me.

I'll just leave IT there so that bridget, thanks for coming and recording this. I know what listeners will um I don't .

want to .

say be happy to hear from you given the subject matter, but listeners have been asking and so it's a and I know that was difficult, but I do really hope that I don't know recording this episode maybe help you start to feel a little bit Normal. You know you mentioned that you don't know if you ever coming back and you we're always changing all the time and something like this, i'm sure ah would profoundly change a person. But you'll get through IT and I hope that you we can all get through IT together. And I know you're not planning you're not coming back into regular production right now, but hopefully, hopefully we'll get back there when you're ready.

Yeah, thanks for go on this journey with me. Make my mom loved you and there .

are so many things about your mom maybe got to know like one percent of things about your mom. But the first time that we met you is the public health nerd in me. We talked about childhood that exposure because that is some research that I did when I was in grade school um and IT turned out that throughout her career SHE had worked with the state of Virginia or the Virginia department public health to really advocate for and get enacted a set of programs to reduce the prevalence of childhood exposure uh for kids in the state of Virginia which is so important uh and you know i'm sure that that made a huge difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands of children so you know just just one little detail of this amazing woman and i'm I really feel grateful that I got to meet her. I thought you're going to tell .

the egg story. So like mike knows, I love eggs and access with eggs, and my mom also really loved eggs, and we go to dinner. And my so it's like, I think I was just was that you mean her? We were at dinner and he ordered like ten plates of people. They were good.

And he just kept ordering more plates of devil eggs and we kept eating them.

We keep eating them.

just kept eating eggs.

I was in heavy. I, I and I didn't think anything was a weird because my, I love eggs and I know my mom love S X. So like, have you not say something to be others? Like what do you mean it's not Normal.

Eat twelve devil eggs in a city. good. But not also was really, I I don't want IT.

There will be a vitas. Like, I free for all with me telling stories of my mom. I, I could do IT for my dad too.

But like, SHE really was like a great, where that he had a great laugh. I there was god I would kill to hear my mom's laugh again. Like I was like music.

He had a really, and he was easy to laugh. That was my favorite about my mom, is that he was really smiling. Easy to laugh is something I aspire to.

And I I hope it's something that I Carry in her. And SHE who don't think about her is that he loved her granddaughter. IT is such a tragedy that SHE did not get to meet her newest grandkids because my brother and his wife and twins.

So two new one's out there, but he had a really special relationship with my needs, and SHE went a lot of time with her, and my niece was, will laugh in a way that my mom did. That kind of gets me, I see a lot of my mom in my knees, and she's not only four, but she's say things, or should laugh in a kind of way. I really like, almost scary how I can see my mom shing through my knees.

And I hope shadow sounds what I hope he haunts me. I just like, would do anything just talked her like one more time 走， like I don't。 People have all different kinds of relationships with their family. But you know it's it's hard, very hard to lose them.

And whether whether you lose them because they they pass away or you lose them because they are not in your life or another reason or whether you lose them because there like my dad dealing with dementia kind of lost them even though they're still here that is so hard so yeah ah I hate to end that a bama by this is what IT means to be a human. And everybody has to go through this and at the first person to go through this. People listening will go through this in some capacity and know as hard as IT is.

We don't have to tolerate IT being made harder in these ways that pull us apart from who we are as humans like this is human. This is graef. It's ugly.

It's horrible. What's messi already? IT doesn't also have to be a way that we getting exploited.

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