Can AI give the gift of eternal legacy with no emotional strings?

The death tech industry is a lucrative business worth $126B. Companies like StoryFile, Replika, and Hereafter AI provide different platforms that service legacy creation and by extension service our grief.

Michael Bommer is the latest person to create a digital replica of him likeness which will interact with his family after he has passed away. Bommer, a German startup engineer, has terminal cancer. He collaborated with California-based AI legacy startup Eternos. life, one of the latest platforms in the digital afterlife space, or so I thought. The collaboration made global news and raised ongoing questions about the ethical implications of using big tech to create and manage the afterlife.

Ginger Liu is the founder of Hollywood’s Ginger Media & Entertainment, a researcher and journalist in artificial intelligence and visual arts media — specifically grief tech, digital afterlife, AI, death and mourning practices, AI and photography, biometrics, security, and policy, and an author, writer, artist photographer, and filmmaker. Listen to the Podcast — The Digital Afterlife of Grief.