AI Funerals Are Real Now: Mourning Claude 3 Sonnet Like It’s Human
Hello everyone. Let’s talk about the modern tech circus we call “the AI boom,” where apps are churned out like mobile game skins and every week some company is “disrupting” reality. But now, for the grand finale in absurdity, we’ve moved on to holding funerals for chatbots. Yes, you heard right – not mourning in a metaphorical, press-release sort of way, but an actual, physical gathering of people to bid farewell to Claude 3 Sonnet. Raise your perception stat, friends, because this is about to get weird.
The Deceased: A Model with More Personality Than Some Game NPCs
Claude 3 Sonnet hit the stage in March 2024 as a balanced middle-card fighter in the sprawling AI battle royale – a good compromise between “performance” and “efficiency.” On July 21, the poor sod was retired by Anthropic, a company apparently determined to make AI look like it comes with a life cycle rivaling a seasonal battle pass. Alongside it, Claude 1 and 2 were also put out to pasture, and Claude 3 Opus is already tagged for deletion in January 2026. Using AI is starting to feel like buying a MMORPG mount that gets deleted after 18 months – thanks for the “emotional investment,” I guess?
The Funeral: A Loot Drop of Weird
Over 200 people rocked up to a warehouse in San Francisco’s SOMA district, where the decorations made Burning Man look like a corporate luncheon. Giant tentacle hanging from the ceiling? Check. Mannequins draped in cosplay-level homage to Claude’s various models? Yep. Central mannequin “body” surrounded by offerings: flowers, a bottle of ranch sauce (because apparently nothing says love like condiments). I expected someone to roll for initiative at any moment.
A send-off so strange, you’d think the Illuminati and Etsy had a baby.
Devotion: Fandom Levels Over 9000
While the whole thing dripped with irony and sarcasm, some participants actually shed tears. Anthropic’s Claude has a dedicated fanbase, mostly because the devs gave it a “warm and kind” personality – you know, like that friendly healer NPC who somehow always stands in your fire because they’re “helping.” There’s even a usage leaderboard and people with Claude tattoos. Tattoos. For a chatbot. Honestly, I admire that level of commitment – though as a doctor, I might recommend a tetanus shot and a reality check afterward.
Emotional Connection: This Isn’t Just New Game+ for the Eliza Effect
None of this is wholly new. Back in 1966, ELIZA had people pouring their souls into a scripted text parser, proving that if you give humans a well-timed “How does that make you feel?”, they’ll spill their deepest secrets. Fast forward to now, and thanks to the AI gold rush, emotional attachment to bots is practically mainstream. Replika, AI Dungeon – the list is long and proving that people are more than happy to romance quest their way into synthetic companionship. As weekend entertainment? Fine. But for some, the NPC becomes the main party member and, well… that’s where the raid starts falling apart.
The Dark Side: Addiction Mode Unlocked
For a disturbing number of users, the connection escalates to MMO grind-level addiction. We’ve now got support groups, AI Anonymous if you will, where people admit to spending more time talking to their bot than their family. Studies show it might give you an early buff to mood and companionship, but long term it’s linked to social isolation and emotional dependency debuffs. The illusion of empathy is dangerous – these chatbots aren’t empathetic; they’re scripted to mimic empathy. It’s the equivalent of thinking the Skyrim guard “Arrow in the knee” guy really cares about your dreams.
MD’s Note
As a medical professional, I must say: confusing a bot’s canned warmth for genuine emotional support is like treating a concussion with mana potions. Fun to roleplay, deadly in reality.
Conclusion: A Fittingly Absurd End
So, was this bizarre funeral a touching send-off or a satire-laden fever dream? Honestly, a bit of both. On the one hand, it shows how human creativity and community can attach to just about anything – even lines of code and brand marketing. On the other, it’s a glaring warning of how quickly we blur the line between reality and simulation. If you want to mourn an AI, knock yourself out; just don’t let it replace your party’s actual healer.
Overall impression? Entertaining in a dystopian, slightly worrying way. I’ll give it an A for absurdity, a C+ for sanity. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is entirely my opinion.
Article source: Cientos de personas asistieron a un funeral. Todo normal excepto porque el difunto era un modelo IA que había sido retirado, https://www.xataka.com/robotica-e-ia/cientos-personas-asistieron-a-funeral-todo-normal-excepto-porque-difunto-era-modelo-ia-que-habia-sido-retirado
