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Q1: Is this an AI pretending to be my loved one?
No. GRIEFROOM does not synthesize a chatbot persona or generate new "personality" from scraped data. It uses the voice memo you provide — their actual voice — to speak responses shaped by the words and phrasing in that recording. The responses are guided by what they said, not invented from population averages. We call it a memorial, not a simulation. The difference is sacred: a memorial holds what was real. A simulation pretends to continue what ended.
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Q2: What happens to my photo and voice recording?
Your files are encrypted on upload and stored in your private vault only. They are never shared, never used to train any AI model, never accessible to GRIEFROOM staff or third parties. When you close the room on day 30 — or at any time before — all files are permanently deleted from our servers. You may export your journal before closing. We do not keep copies.
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Q3: Is 30 days enough? What if I'm not ready to close the room?
Thirty days is intentional. Grief research and clinical practice consistently show that open-ended digital access to a deceased person's likeness can deepen complicated grief rather than resolve it. The fixed window creates a container — not a cage. You always have your memories. You always have the letters you wrote. What closes on day 30 is the room, not your relationship with them. If you need more support, we surface grief counseling resources at the 20-day mark and again at closing.
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Q4: What if I become dependent on this — and can't stop coming back?
This is the right question. We designed GRIEFROOM to prevent the loop that traps users in other grief apps: the ability to return anytime, indefinitely, compulsively. The 30-day hard limit is not a product constraint — it's a clinical one. The room cannot be extended, reopened, or cloned. You are not paying for "lifetime access." You are paying for a container that helps you arrive somewhere you could not get to alone. GRIEFROOM is not a substitute for therapy. If you are in acute grief, please speak to a licensed grief counselor. We list accredited resources inside the app.
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Q5: Did they consent to this?
This is the ethical center of GRIEFROOM. We take it seriously.
GRIEFROOM is only for the living. It does not reconstruct a person from social media, public records, or scraped data without consent. You provide the inputs: one photo, one voice memo. These should be materials you have rightful access to — recordings you made with them, photographs you took. We are building a pre-mortem consent registry so people can record their wishes about GRIEFROOM before death. Until that system is live, we ask users to reflect: Would they have wanted this? If the answer is uncertain, we suggest waiting. If the answer is no, we ask you not to use it. This is not a policy we can enforce technically — it is an ethical commitment we ask you to hold.