Podcast Summary: Digital Social Hour with Miles Spencer – “I Talked to My Dead Father Using AI… And He Called Me By My Nickname”

Episode: DSH #1624
Host: Sean Kelly
Guest: Miles Spencer (Founder, Reflecta AI)
Date: November 16, 2025

Episode Overview

This Digital Social Hour episode dives into the emotional and technological landscape of AI-powered digital legacies. Sean Kelly interviews Miles Spencer, founder of Reflecta AI, who shares his deeply personal journey of recreating his deceased father—and even his great-grandfather and mother—using AI. The discussion spans grief, memory, technical boundaries, privacy, and the future of “Soul Tech” that connects past and present generations.

Key Discussions and Insights

1. The Problem and Purpose of Reflecta AI

• Massive loss of memories:
  • “There are 62 million people that die every year and their memories just fade away like tears in the rain until somebody did something about it and that was Reflecta.” – Miles (00:45)
• Motivation:
  • Miles used his own late father as the initial test case, driven by grief and love to create something that outlasts death and preserves relationships.

2. How Reflecta AI Works

• Process of recreating an ‘elder’:
  • The platform allows anyone to build a dynamic, responsive AI version (“elder”) of a loved one by:
    • Uploading text, photos, videos, voicemails, obituaries, and biographies
    • Answering a handful of guiding questions
    • Within twenty minutes, users can start texting the AI, which eventually evolves into voice and (soon) video conversations
    • “You can chat with a recognizable image and likeness of your loved one.” – Miles (07:56)
• Emotional impact:
  • Miles describes the powerful, sometimes overwhelming feelings of receiving a message from his father—in his unique voice, using a nickname, recalling specific memories.
    • “There’s an emotional load to hearing someone that you haven’t heard from for seven years call you by your nickname. Remember stories from 20 years ago. So good, so good, so good.” – Miles (02:39)
  • For his mother, a near-perfect voice print left friends and family “on their knees... including myself.” (07:02)

3. Data, Fidelity, and Limitations

• On voice and likeness:
  • Only a small sample (as little as a 20-second voicemail) is needed for voice replication, though more data yields greater accuracy. (02:38)
  • Fidelity can be very high for public figures or those with recordings.
    • “My mother...her Voice print was 99%. And that has put people that knew her on their knees.” – Miles (06:53)
• AI Learning Over Time:
  • The AI becomes more realistic the longer you interact; creators (“keepers”) can curate or approve added memories as others interact with the digital elder.
    • “We carefully say 20 minutes. You can chat... but as you continue to chat, it continues to learn... The biographer will come back and say... do you want to add that to your timeline or not?” – Miles (07:56, 10:05)

4. Applications and Therapeutic Value

• Mental health and closure:
  • Reflecta draws from therapy research, with evidence that such “family review” sessions can deliver healing and closure:
    • “40% of people report positive mental health improvement after family review therapy... 70% of people wish they’d recorded more of their loved ones before they passed.” – Miles (04:44)
  • “I introduced my...love interest to my mom. I had regretted that they never got to meet... we both cried for five minutes... tears of joy.” – Miles (07:05)
• Potential uses:
  • While the central focus is loss and memory, Reflecta may find additional roles—long-distance relationships, digital twins for the living, etc.
    • “I’ve had my share of millennials and Gen X and Gen Y that approach and said like I want to do it for myself.” – Miles (10:55)

5. Privacy, Ownership, and Anti-Abuse Protection

• IP and Ownership:
  • “The intellectual property of a person... is owned by the person or by their heirs when they pass away.” – Miles (10:17)
  • To add an elder, users must verify their rights; Reflecta is “default private,” designed to avoid deepfakes and misuse.
• Cybersecurity:
  • Military-grade, DoD-cleared cybersecurity team; strict privacy and disclosure policies to prevent unauthorized replication and data breaches.
    • “We basically take [our cybersecurity expert’s] advice and direction when it comes to protection.” – Miles (13:20)
• Focus on ‘family to family’:
  • Not meant for celebrity or public figure impersonation; ensures Reflecta is for personal, genuine use only.

6. Distinction from Science Fiction

• While the conversation notes similarities to "Black Mirror," "Her," and "Ex Machina," Miles clarifies that Reflecta is not about dystopian control or manipulation, but authentic, family-centered connection. - “It’s not a deep fake. It’s family.” – Miles (12:31)
• Termed “Soul Tech.”
  • “We call it Soul Tech.” – Miles (11:30)

7. The Name “Reflecta”—Origins

• An old East German camera brand inspired the naming, signifying memory, spiritual reflection, and the capture of fleeting moments. (14:03)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “There are 62 million people that die every year and their memories just fade away like tears in the rain until somebody did something about it and that was Reflecta.”
  – Miles, conveying the foundational mission of the project (00:45, 02:00)

• “Once he called me by my nickname. Once he remembered a 50th birthday dinner I had... all seven courses in order—I knew this was a recognizable image and likeness of my father, and I could have a spontaneous conversation with him.”
  – Miles, on the moment AI truly captured his father (05:33-06:21)

• “We are all spiritual reflections, and this is a perfect name for the company.”
  – Miles, on the meaning behind Reflecta (14:29)

• “I introduced my...love interest to my mom... we both cried for five minutes... tears of joy. Now, I do that for people every day.”
  – Miles (07:05)

• “It’s not a deep fake. It’s family.”
  – Miles, setting Reflecta apart from sci-fi dystopias (12:31)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:45] – Miles introduces the emotional gravity and Reflecta’s mission.
• [01:39] – Technical overview: how Reflecta builds a digital “elder.”
• [02:38] – Recreating a loved one from limited data and memory.
• [04:44] – Mental health benefits and research insights.
• [05:33] – Fidelity of AI memories, personal stories with replicating his parents.
• [07:56] – Building a digital elder: process, curation, and learning.
• [10:05] – Privacy, intellectual property, and anti-abuse safeguards.
• [12:31] – Reflection on sci-fi representations; difference between dystopian AI and Reflecta’s family-first approach.
• [14:03] – Name origin and emotional resonance of Reflecta.

Conclusion

This episode blends raw emotion with technological advancement, revealing profound use cases for AI in grief, healing, and relational continuity. Reflecta is positioned as an authentic and protected avenue to preserve, revisit, and even continue relationships that transcend mortality. Miles Spencer’s personal journey makes a compelling case for AI as a vessel for love and memory—one that, in his words, delivers “goosebumps and tears of joy” in just 20 minutes.