Digital Afterlife and the Future of Collective Memory

Abstract

Abstract Digital technology increasingly addresses people dealing with dying, death and grief. The range of options now extends to ai-based forms of “digital afterlife”, in which the deceased are represented digitally in the form of a chatbot or avatar. Based on large amounts of personal data, they can simulate the person’s communicative behavior, including their visual appearance, thus enabling him or her to interact with users. The applications of the so-called Digital Afterlife Industry not only offer new possibilities in the fields of grief culture, the education sector, and the entertainment industry, but also raise ethical, legal and security-related questions that have so far received little attention. At the intersection of technological innovation (especially artificial intelligence), cultures of mourning and collective memory, this article discusses the (potential) social effects of a digital afterlife and its implication in terms of memory. We will particularly address the fact that more and more people in their everyday life are able to use a digital public representation, which continues after their death and with which users can interact.