This week, it seems like the town crier, Chicken Little, and everyone in between has been sounding the alarm about an AI doomsday. Cue the town bell.
Apparently, the people building AI are now worried that AI might actually be too good at its job. The debate about whether we can keep it under control has been on a low simmer for a while now, and this week it seems to have boiled over.
I’ll leave the existential debate to people smarter than me. Here’s what I will say: I’m not freaking out. I’ve learned to take these headlines with a grain of salt.
What I will weigh in on is this: I’ve been in the business of managing death for several years now, and I have watched a parade of companies promise to solve the death administration problem with AI.
“Powered by AI!“
“AI enabled!”
“Using AI, we’ll settle your loved one’s estate faster than ever!“
I’ve been sitting back with my popcorn, waiting to see how the mop has flopped.
And here’s what I’ve observed: My team and I are still here. We’re humans, solving and assisting with one of the most human of all human experiences.
If you’ve ever settled an estate, you know how mind-numbingly analog and paper-fueled it is. Death administration is not just slow because of the paperwork. It’s slow because of the institutions.
AI can automate your side of the fence all day long, but it cannot make the bank, the custodian, the government agency, or the insurance company on the other side move any faster. Those institutions need to verify who you are, confirm your legal authority to act, and follow their own protocols. Estate laws, privacy requirements, security protocols, and plain old bureaucracy don’t care how sophisticated your software is.
So, what I’m saying is, AI can get you to the fence. It cannot get you over it.
And that fence is where most families get stuck.
I’m not anti-AI. Far from it. I use it every day. I think it has a real role to play in organizing information, flagging what needs to happen next, and reducing the cognitive load on families who are already exhausted. But the work itself, the phone calls, the follow-ups, the judgment calls, knowing when to push and when to wait, that’s still very much human work. It probably will be for a long time.
So yes, AI is having a moment. And yes, it will keep changing how we work.
But the person who wrote this newsletter is a human. The people who pick up the phone when you call AfterLight are humans. And the work we do for families navigating one of the hardest seasons of their lives is, and will remain, deeply human.
That still matters. Maybe now more than ever.
