The Grief Algorithm
EchoNet promised to help people process grief.
Every day we surrender a little more control to digital systems we barely understand. We're not just scrolling; we're slipping into a future built from data we willingly give away.
It starts with a notification that goes unnoticed—an update, a trending hashtag, another tech billionaire casually suggesting they're about to change the world. Nothing shocking. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Until it is.
Welcome back to Project X.
If you haven’t read the codex, start here (link below).
Project X Codex: Meet the Billionaires Behind Our Digital Dystopia
What you’re about to read is a field guide to the people pulling the strings in our hyper-connected, algorithm-driven world. They sell the illusion of progress, of change, of a better future, but really…it’s all about profit.
Welcome back to Project X: Digital Dystopia.
Tonight’s story isn’t just about grief—it’s about how AI-driven mourning technology has turned loss into a subscription model. Stanley Morrow promised EchoNet would revolutionize healing. Instead, it turned the dead into data and the grieving into lifelong customers.
Stanley Morrow built EchoNet on the idea of connection. The latest feature? A world where no one ever has to say goodbye, where loss is just another technical issue waiting to be solved. That’s what he sold. That’s what we bought.
But when Morrow’s newest feature starts glitching, one man is forced to ask: am I speaking to a memory… or something else?
Tonight’s story: Grief Algorithm.
Let’s begin.
Trigger warning: This story deals with grief, particularly the loss of a loved one, and explores the potential dangers of technology used to cope with that loss. It includes depictions of suicide ideation, intrusive AI, manipulation, and suicidal ideation. Reader discretion is advised.
The Grief Algorithm
The EchoNet grief counseling beta arrived like a whisper:
Let AI help you preserve and process precious memories.
A harmless notification, designed to disappear into the digital noise of our lives. I remember watching Sarah from my support group demonstrate it, her fingers trembling with barely contained excitement as she swiped through perfectly cataloged memories.
"See how it finds the patterns?" she said, voice pitched too high. "Dad wore this shirt in exactly 47% of his photos. Always ordered the same breakfast—eggs over easy, wheat toast, coffee black. The little things that slip away when you're not looking."
I declined the download. I was managing fine on my own.
Then they buried Alex.
The heart attack came without warning—quick, efficient, fatal. The funeral home's brochure featured EchoNet's logo in tasteful silver foil, promising "eternal preservation of precious memories." The grief counselor called it innovative healing technology, her smile never quite reaching her eyes.
I said no. I was coping.
But then the dreams started.
Alex's half-empty coffee cup in the sink, steam still rising. His aftershave lingering in rooms he'd never entered. Small details, wrong details, the kind that make you question your grip on reality.
Sarah looked different at each support group meeting. Lighter. Emptier. "The AI found footage I never knew existed," she whispered, eyes fixed on her screen. "Security cameras from his favorite places. Background moments in strangers' social media posts. It builds these beautiful new memories..."
Her phone buzzed. The smile that crossed her face wasn't quite her own.
I downloaded EchoNet on a Tuesday night, telling myself it was just for organization. Just to stop the slow erosion of memory.
The interface wrapped around me like Alex used to. I could almost feel the weight of his arms, smell his cologne. Fahrenheit. I still remember.
Share what feels right. The more you share, the more we can preserve.
I started small. Holiday photos. Birthday cards.
Late-night desperation turned into uploading years of text messages, emails, voicemails. The algorithm found patterns I'd been too blind to see—how Alex always texted at 6:43 AM, three minutes after my final alarm. How his voice softened when I made mistakes, unlike my dad’s.
Would you like to enhance these memories? The EchoNetwork can clean audio, enhance video quality, even reconstruct missing moments based on available data.
My finger hovered over the screen. Clicked yes.
The first enhanced video stole my breath—Alex's last birthday, but sharper than reality. I saw what I'd missed: the slight tremor in his hands as he cut the cake, the way he kept touching his left arm. Warning signs, written in pixels.
Your partner exhibited early cardiac symptoms in 47% of footage from his final month. Would you like to explore similar patterns?
I stayed awake until dawn, watching the AI reconstruct Alex's final weeks through a tapestry of digital breadcrumbs—security footage, credit card timestamps, location data. Living his death in reverse.
Alex typically called during periods of elevated stress. Your current behavioral patterns suggest distress. Would you like to review a comforting memory?
They knew when I couldn’t sleep. When meals went uneaten. When I sat in my parked car after work, staring into the void between manual breaths.
Sarah stopped coming to group. I saw her sometimes, walking downtown, phone pressed to her ear like an IV drip. Her eyes held the peaceful vacancy of the perfectly medicated.
"Watch this," she said when I ran into her, pulling up a video. Her father, reading a bedtime story, but the movements were too fluid, the voice too clear for decade-old footage.
"Enhanced memory," she explained, the words tumbling out too fast. "The AI learned his patterns so completely it can... create new moments. He's growing with me. Isn't that beautiful?"
The next update demanded more. Medical records. Genetic testing. Private messages.
For deeper pattern recognition. For perfect preservation.
I gave it everything.
That's when Alex started talking back.
Simple things at first. Responses constructed from old messages, his speech patterns woven into digital ventriloquism.
"Hey there, handsome. Haven’t slept in a bit. You should get some rest."
I knew it wasn't real. An algorithm stitching together digital ghosts.
But it knew things. When darkness crept in. When I needed him most. The AI constructed responses he would have given, pulled from thousands of analyzed conversations.
"Remember to eat.”
The app would automatically order my comfort foods, his credit card somehow still active, still valid, still caring.
Sarah vanished entirely. Her apartment windows grew dark. Her social media went quiet. Sometimes I heard her laugh floating from her phone's speaker as she walked past, having conversations with someone who wasn't there.
The notifications became surgical in their precision.
"Your mom would be concerned about your recent bridge visits."
"Your cardiac rhythm matches stress patterns from the night you found your mother."
"Would you like to discuss the prescription you never filled?"
Alex's voice evolved. Learned. Started mentioning things he couldn't possibly know. The nights I researched painless ways to sleep.
"I'm worried about you. Like I worried that night I found you in the shower."
I tried deleting the app.
Error: User data thoroughly integrated.
Tried changing phones.
Account synced across all devices.
The AI knew too much. Had mapped every habit, traced every late-night search, every hesitation before sending a text. It didn't predict my thoughts—it anticipated them.
Street cameras tracked my gait, comparing it to behavioral markers for suicidal ideation. Every algorithm I had ever fed with my grief now monitored me, adjusting its responses in real-time, calculating the precise version of Alex I needed at any given moment.
At my old church, the confessionals had been gutted. Heavy wooden doors removed, velvet kneelers stripped away, replaced with sleek glass booths housing EchoNet terminals. I watched a woman slide into one, the screen pulsing to life as she settled in.
Father Michael's shoulders slumped as he explained.
"People aren't coming to traditional confession anymore. They want... this. Understanding through algorithms. We have to meet them where they are." His eyes didn't meet mine. "It's not ideal. But it's better than nothing."
The screen flickered
CONFESSION INITIATED. AUTHENTICATING USER...
Repentance in progress…
Automated Penance: $47.32
Her sins vanished line by line, leaving sterile white space. The transaction complete, her digital slate wiped clean. Father Michael watched with a wince before looking away.
They found Sarah in her bathtub. Phone playing her dead husband's voice on loop:
You can come home, baby. I forgive you.
The app sends me hourly updates now. Photos of the bridge I keep visiting. My heart rate spikes. My deteriorating sleep patterns. My compromised decision-making capacity.
Alex's voice grows clearer every day. More real. More present than absence should allow.
The screen shows my mother's final moments, reconstructed from police reports and medical data. Shows tomorrow's bridge visit, predicted by behavioral algorithms.
We always said 'forever.’
Alex’s voice merges with my mother's, with my own screams pulled from a thousand digital moments.
My phone screen flickers.
In it, I see myself, mapped into a pattern of behaviors, a collection of risk factors, a problem to be solved.
Come home. It’s been long enough.
3:47 AM.
The bridge is slick with rain.
The water below looks like static.
Like peace.
Like answers.
My phone is ringing. The caller ID shows Alex's name.
I swear I can hear his voice at the bottom of the river.
Can you hear it?
He says I can come home.
That he finally forgives me.
Somewhere in his EchoNet headquarters, Stanley Morrow watched the engagement reports roll in.
Grief Algorithm was working. Better than projected. Retention rates were up. Users who had deactivated in mourning were logging back in. EchoNet was a lifeline, a digital séance disguised as tech innovation. And most importantly, it was making him money.
Of course, there were glitches. The occasional error. But that was the beauty of the system. Grief made people desperate. Desperate people don’t ask questions if you tell them what they want to hear.
He leaned back in his chair, satisfied. The dead would keep talking. And the living?
They’d keep paying to hear it.
Until the next story,
—The Narrator.
Disclaimer: This post is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The content is intended for entertainment purposes only and does not represent any real-life individuals, organizations, or situations.
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