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Outlook: Texting my Dead Father

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James Vlahos with his Dad

01/08/2017 GMT

Texting my Dead Father

BBC World Service - Outlook, Texting my Dead Father

James Vlahos created a chatbot to keep his father's memory alive.

James Vlahos created a chatbot to keep his father's memory alive. He demonstrated how it works to Jo Fidgen.

Do you ever dream of being able to have a conversation with someone you love but who's passed away? Californian journalist, James Vlahos was devastated when he heard his father, John, had very little time left to live - and he wanted to find a way of keeping their relationship going. He came up with a rather extraordinary idea, to create a chatbot of him. He brought his creation along to a studio in San Francisco, to demonstrate how it works to Jo Fidgen.

Hugo Bautista is a master clockmaker from Mexico City. Despite being offered prestigious jobs in Switzerland, he chooses to ply his trade on a market in the notorious suburb of Tepito where his mother had a stall before him.

Stuart Barnes is a shepherd and animal behaviourist. He tours the UK with a dancing sheep roadshow. He was inspired to spread a little happiness by an incident in Rwanda on a trip to visit mountain gorillas.

(Picture: James Vlahos with his father. Credit: James Vlahos.)

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