In late December 2023, Beth Mazur passed away, and several fake artificial intelligence-generated obituaries about her and Brian Vastag appeared in Google search results. These fake obituaries caused confusion and concern among their friends and colleagues, as well as their community. The websites that published these fake obituaries had strange names and contained a constant stream of articles on various topics, including deaths of people around the world. Some of these sites contained inaccurate information, such as the date or location of the memorial service. Aggregation sites regularly outrank real funeral homes that work with grieving families. The fake obituary writers appear to have used artificial intelligence to create obituaries for different people who died from different causes. Mazur and Vastag also experimented with generative artificial intelligence tools in their final months.

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“[The obituaries] had this real world impact where at least four people that I know of called [our] mutual friends, and thought that I had died with her, like we had a suicide pact or something,” says Vastag, who for a time was married to Mazur and remained close with her.

Beyond the dozen sites writing about Mazur, there is a sprawling network of high-ranking websites making money when family, friends, and acquaintances go searching for information about a deceased person.

Google has long struggled to contain obituary spam — for years, low-effort SEO-bait websites have simmered in the background and popped to the top of search results after an individual dies.

Others collect orders for flowers or gifts that don’t arrive in time, frustrating family and friends and causing headaches for local funeral homes, Gould Miller says.

Under the Thailand news category: “Man’s public poop at Thai car showroom creates online buzz.” The Trending section features articles like “Pedro Pascal’s surprising revelation steals show at 2024 Emmy Awards” and other pastiches of early 2010s internet clickbait.

Stories about deaths are often tagged as “trending” even when there’s no indication the individual was known outside of their community, and the articles appear to be aggregating or rewriting local news reports, social media posts, or actual obituaries from family.

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