A stone relief depicting a giant believed to be King Gilgamesh. 713–706 BC.

In the earliest known written work of literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh, King Gilgamesh speaks of mortality and the fear of death.

Terracotta wall panel depicting Enkidu. 2027-1763 BCE.

It is this fear coupled with his grief over the tragic death of his friend, Enkidu, that motivates Gilgamesh to set off on a quest for eternal life.

Illustration from Gilgamesh the King. Ludmila Zeman. 1999. Gilgamesh finds the plant of immortality at the bottom of a mystical lake.

After perilous trials and long travels, Gilgamesh comes across a plant that holds the power to restore youth, but it is carried off by a snake before he can consume it and attain immortality.

Vanitas / Still Life with Skull, Open Book with Glasses, and Hourglass / The Sands of Time. Thomas Richard William. 1850 - 1852.

This confrontation with mortality is as old as humanity itself. The consciousness that defines us as human comes with the inescapable comprehension that we will one day cease to be conscious. We are compelled to try to succeed where Gilgamesh failed— to obtain immortality.

The Fountain of Youth. Lucas Cranach the Elder. 1546.

Immortality, in this context, can be interpreted both literally and symbolically. ▪ Literal immortality ▪ is everlasting life in the literal sense that one never dies. The pursuit of literal immortality includes mysticism like alchemy or the search for fabled fountains and elixirs of life.

The Ambassadors. Hans Holbein the Younger. 1533. This painting symbolizes the tension between worldly achievements and the inevitability of death, with the anamorphic skull serving as a reminder of mortality, highlighting the transient nature of life and the pursuit of symbolic immortality through cultural and intellectual legacy.

Given that the pursuit of literal immortality hasn’t succeeded, people have turned to more symbolic methods of thwarting death. ▪ Symbolic immortality ▪ has functioned as one of the central mechanisms in the establishment of nations and religions over the course of history, the knowledge of death creating a fundamental motivation for action during life.

Hereditary, Theological, and Social immortality are subsets of Symbolic Immortality.

The concept of symbolic immortality is rather broad, as it’s arguably as old as humanity itself, but we’ll focus on three categories : Hereditary, Theological, and Social.

The family tree of Louis III, Duke of Württemberg. 1590.

▪ Hereditary Immortality ▪ is the belief that one lives on through one’s offspring. This is the central motivation behind family heritage or the passing on of material and cultural value along with one’s genes. It is this force that has lead to the establishment of dynasties over the course of history, as well as conflicts between these dynasties.

Canto XXXI. Gustave Doré. 1892.

▪ Theological Immortality ▪ is based on the concept of the afterlife, a central principal of the world’s major religions. The immortal soul lives on in another plane of existence, whether that be a permutation of heaven, hell, or the reincarnation of the soul in another form.

Portrait of Louis XIV. Hyacinthe Rigaud. 1701

Finally, ▪ Social Immortality ▪ is the idea that one can live on in the thoughts and memories of others. This includes our personal relations, but also artifacts that can represent and survive us. Examples could be depictions of our likeness, living wills that represent our wishes, and our life’s work.

Danse Macabre. Hans Holbein the Younger. 16th century. The immortality Adam and Eve is revoked as punishment for defying God’s will.

Part of the problem we’re now facing is that all three of these types of symbolic immortality are in decline. It is becoming increasingly difficult to project oneself into the future, and this can has significant consequences for humanity, both in the short and ▪ long-term ▪.

The user interface for one’s genetic origins. 23andMe. Services like these mark an increased interest in genealogy.

Dynasties, in the traditional medieval sense of the term, are no longer in fashion. Changing attitudes about marriage, racial purity, and intergenerational wealth have diminished the importance of hereditary immortality. Technology has facilitated the practice of genealogy, but these tools have served to indicate the common origins and intermixing of bloodlines that make concepts like familial and ethnic purity seem archaic.

The ruins of San Galgano Abbey. What was once a place of religious study and worship is now a tourist attraction.

Declining religiosity has left many unwilling or unable to believe in the afterlife, and so interest in theological immortality has declined as well. Many still choose to believe in some form of soul or afterlife, but these beliefs are generally untethered from the practices and rituals in established religions that render theological immortality more tangible in the minds of believers.

Nighthawks. Edward Hopper. 1942. Hopper stated that he was “painting the loneliness of a large city.”

Rising social isolation and declining participation in community make Social Immortality more difficult to establish and maintain. The social mechanisms that foster relationships with those we could be remembered by cease to function properly at the scale of modern cities.

Richard Çœur de Lion Having the Saracens Beheaded. Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville. 1789.

One could argue that the decline of these forms of immortality is a good thing. Most would prefer not to return to the days of monarchical rule and the arranged (often incestuous) marriages needed to maintain it. The religious afterlife, while a reassurance for believers, can also function as a tool that facilitates holy war. The social mechanisms that allow us to create in-groups often manifest as hatred for the out-group.

Melancolia. Albrecht Dürer. 1514. A winged angel sits unsatisfied among instruments of science and mysticism.

Problematic as these symbolic systems may be, we are struggling to find viable replacements for them and a contemporary crisis of meaning has arisen in the void. Death has always been one of the central subjects of philosophy, but the problem that we now face has developed over the course of the last four centuries, and the origins of this problem can be traced back through the philosophy of each epoque. This chronology is not exhaustive, but it illustrates how we arrived at this point.

A scientific illustration of a human heart from Descartes posthumously published De Homine. 1650. Descartes opted not to have it published during his lifetime out of fear of persecution by the Church. The illustration demonstrates a desire to explore human physiology via empirical methods as opposed to religious ritual or mysticism.

One of the seminal texts by philosopher René Descartes marks the start of the transition from mystic to scientific principals for achieving immortality. In his treatise, Discourse on Method, Descartes hypothesizes about a scientific, medicinal cure for aging as an example of applying empirical knowledge as opposed to mysticism and esoterism.

Jacob Wrestling with the Angel. Léon Bonnat. 1876. This Biblical narrative is often interpreted as the struggle between faith and doubt.

Approximately one hundred years later, Immanuel Kant makes the distinction between that which is knowable to the human senses, called Phenomena, and that which is fundamentally unknowable, called Noumena. Crucially, Kant implies that religious belief, and therefore the afterlife, is in the latter category. Another century after that, theologian Søren Kierkegaard acknowledges this and claims that such belief requires a “qualitative leap.” The ideas of these men mark the transition from the presumption of an afterlife to the supposition that theological immortality requires a leap of faith.

Lamentation over the Dead Christ. Andrea Mantegna. 1480.

The issue is that fewer people were able to take that leap as church power diminished. Friedrich Nietzsche recognized this on the cusp of the 20th century with his famous statement that “God is dead.” A few years later, Martin Heidegger identified death’s deep connection to meaning in his concepts of Dasein and being-towards-death. Heidegger proposed that life is a search for authenticity and meaning in awareness of and preparation for death.

Aerial view after the bombardment in Vire, Normandy. 1944. The existentialists were heavily influenced by the inane violence and loss of life that they witnessed during WWII, prompting a focus on individual freedom, responsibility, and the search for meaning in an absurd and chaotic world.

In the mid 20th-century, the existentialists struggled to find meaning in the post-war world and make sense of death in the absence of the old forms of immortality. One of the principal among them, Albert Camus, claims that death makes life meaningless and absurd, but that we should nonetheless revolt against this absurdity. Paradoxically, the struggle against death and inevitable meaninglessness is what gives life meaning.

Vanitas. Philippe de Champaigne. 1671. The painting depicts the three aspects of mortality as symbols: Life, Death, and Time.

Simultaneously, the importance of death and symbolic immortality makes the jump from philosophy to psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud’s concept of the death drive, which has since been highly contested, nonetheless highlights the importance of death in the human psyche. Another half-century later, Carl Jung would bring the power of symbolism to the forefront of clinical psychology. A few years after Jung’s death in 1961, Ernest Becker would then synthesize these ideas and those of other psychoanalysts to make the case that death is indeed the primary engine of human action.

Entrance to Auschwitz, where Frankl was held prisoner. 1945.

But among all this philosophizing and psychoanalyzing, I’d argue that the most powerful and pertinent account of the need for meaning is contained in the work of Victor Frankl. In Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl recounts his time as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp during WWII and the psychotherapeutic practice of logotherapy that he developed in response to what he witnessed there. Frankl states that, among the prisoners, the survivors were those who managed to find a source of purpose— a future goal to fight for. Frankl’s retelling serves as a powerful reminder that the way we imagine the future and our role within can literally be a question of life or death.

Frankenstein’s Monster. Lyn Ward. 1934. Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, is an early example of an immortality narrative that uses science as its catalyst, not mysticism.

Frankl’s theory and experience illustrate the deep human need for meaning, especially in the face of death. As these old forms of immortality continue to decline, this need has only become more pronounced. We are now attempting to compensate with technology, transferring our faith from the esoteric noumena to empirical phenomena.

The two newest types of immortality: technological and digital.

As a result, new forms of immortality have come into being in the last century. In the literal category, we have “technological” immortality, giving rise to movements such transhumanism. In the symbolic category, “digital” immortality is emerging as a new source of legacy.

Cryonics facility tanks containing the frozen deceased corpses of those hoping for resurrection facilitated by future technology.

▪ Technological immortality ▪ includes all technologically-assisted pursuits of immortality, such as cryonics, cloning, and biological engineering. None of these methods have thus far been successful in prolonging the human lifespan past its natural limits.

Death and Life. Gustav Klimt. 1911. In Klimt’s painting, Death watches over the cycle of life as the old make way for the new.

It’s also not clear that such a scientific breakthrough would actually benefit humanity. Making way for new generations is one of the primary mechanisms of evolution. Curing death would effectively halt this natural process.

"The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy," Rick and Morty. This episode takes place at a wealthy resort that is surrounded by an “immortality field.”

If such efforts were to succeed, they would likely initially be available only to the wealthy. Cryonics, for example, is prohibitively expensive for most of the global population, the main provider lists its starting price at $80,000 for preserving your decapitated head. Technological immortality could quickly lead to a scenario in which personal wealth literally determines who lives and who dies. We have already arrived at the point where tech moguls are spending millions on extending their lifespans.

ENIAC, the first general-purpose digital computer. 1947.

Even though literal immortality remains out of reach, the digital revolution and the advent of the internet have democratized access to new forms of digital immortality. ▪ Digital immortality ▪ is the practice of representing oneself and preserving one’s legacy in the form of ▪ digital data. ▪

An avatar of the famous comedian Robin Williams in the game World of Warcraft. The avatar was created posthumously for Williams, who was a fan of the game.

People are already engaging with symbolic representations of themselves and loved ones online. Examples include photos, ▪ avatars ▪, and ▪ chatbots ▪, among others. These representations can persist after those they are representing are deceased.

A memorial page for Robin Williams. Facebook. 2024.

Although some are uneasy with the idea of digital immortality, attitudes toward the use of digital media in preserving oneself and one’s loved ones are beginning to change. As the internet ages, data belonging to the deceased occupies an increasingly large proportion of the content we encounter, and we are becoming more habituated to such content.

Beyoncé performing at the Superbowl. 2013. Her publicist famously attempted to get these unflattering photos removed from the internet, which only resulted in their digital proliferation. This image will now likely exist for as long as the internet does; it grants Beyoncé a kind of digital immortality, even if unwanted by Beyoncé herself.

If you’re reading this, it’s likely that you’ve attained a digital afterlife in some form, even if it’s unnoticed or unwanted. Regardless of how we feel about it, we are already living in the age of digital immortality.

A comparison of the graphic depiction of the fictional character Lara Croft in the videogame series Tomb Raider. Reddit user NishanthVM. 2018. There is a 20-year difference between these representations.

What’s more, the means of digitally representing ourselves will only advance. Avatars and chatbots will become more realistic and lifelike. The volume and quality of our digital representations will multiply as computational power increases and the cost of data storage decreases.

A 3D scan of a Babylonian clay tablet containing text from the Epic of Gilgamesh, IPCH Digitization Lab. Today, just about any physical object can be scanned and digitized.

We cannot halt the advance of technology, but we can design products and systems that give us more control over how we choose to remember and be remembered. Digitization offers potential solutions for the decline of immortality, but we must be careful as to how we design and implement these solutions. In the next section, we’ll take a closer look at what others are proposing for the digital afterlife and the technical obstacles that must be overcome.

Friends of the deceased player line up to pay their respects near the virtual pond where he loved to fish.

In 2006, players of the videogame, World of Warcraft, held an in-game funeral for their friend and "guild member” who had died in real life. But as the name suggests, World of Warcraft is a game in which players wage virtual war. During the funeral, rival players appeared and a massacre ensued.

The bodies of the funeral participants' avatars are scattered across the landscape following the attack.

This virtual massacre demonstrates the general confusion and lack of control regarding death in our digital spaces. Platforms like World of Warcraft and Facebook were not originally designed for the death of their users, and so new features have been tacked on to try to compensate. In other words, these platforms are not ▪ thanatosensitive ▪.

Since you were born. Evan Roth. 2019. An installation at MOCA Jacksonville that is comprised of four month’s worth of image data from the browsing history of the artist.

As our digital platforms age, thanatosensitivity becomes increasingly important to factor into their design. For most of human history, people would leave behind a physical inheritance for those they’re survived by. Now, we have a ▪ digital legacy ▪ to worry about as well.

Some of the firms vying for shares of the deathtech market.

Entrepreneurs have taken notice and the ▪ Digital Afterlife Industry ▪ (DAI) has emerged to address this contemporary need. There are a lot of players in the DAI, but not all of their services are thanatosensitive. To create a digital product that is well-designed for death, a number of technical challenges must be surmounted.

The binary code for the phrase “The Design of the Digital Afterlife.” At its most rudimentary form, computer code is made up of binary data. For more info, see digital data.

At the core of every digital product is data. From the code that powers these products to the user data they collect, every service in the digital afterlife industry must make decisions as to how this data is handled. Generally, the ▪ preservation ▪, ▪ accessibility ▪, and ▪ security ▪ of this data must be ensured in the long term, but as we’ll see, this is easier said than done.

lN1UA8n. Tobias Løfgren. 2018. The vulnerability of digital data has given rise to the practice of glitch art, or the intentional corruption of a data file to produce different audiovisual effects.

For starters, all data degrades over time. In the context of digital immortality, preserving data is important because it’s the material that enables us to transmit information to future generations. Its loss represents a loss of information that these future generations can access. Many of the companies in the DAI claim to be able to preserve their users’ data for multiple generations, but to actually do so, these companies must prevent physical data loss and logical data loss.

A environmentally controlled tape storage facility monitored by the National Library of Norway. 2018.

Physical data loss can be prevented by choosing the right storage medium for the data, which would vary depending on the content of that data and how it will be used and accessed. However the data is stored, environmental monitoring and regular system maintenance should be implemented to prevent decay of the medium.

A visual representation of centralized and decentralized storage systems. The centralized system stems from one centralized server, while the decentralized system contains multiple interconnected servers.

But all that hardware and the maintenance required to maintain it can quickly become expensive, and storing data in one place is inherently riskier than more decentralized systems. More distributed forms of data storage, such as cloud storage and blockchain technology, have emerged as solutions that can prevent both physical degradation and digital corruption. However, distributed storage comes with its own challenges and must be balanced against the potential costs of data proliferation.

Error message for a corrupted Excel file. Windows 11.

Logical data loss can be prevented by instituting protocols that protect the data from internal and external threats. Such practices can include regular integrity checks, redundant storage systems, and data backups.

The Rosseta’s Stone, a stele containing the decrees of King Ptolemy V issued in 197 BC. The decrees were translated into 3 languages on the stone, which became the key to deciphering ancient Egyptian scripts.

Once we are able to effectively preserve the data that makes up the digital afterlife, we’ll need to ensure that this data remains accessible. Without the ability to access and understand the information we are transmitting to the future, even well-preserved data can become lost or unusable over time.

A floppy disk, which was once a widely popular way to store data in the 70s and 80s, is now largely obsolete. Typical personal digital devices have no way to read them.

Luckily, accessibility can be ensured with a bit of planning. Practices such as maintaining interoperability, metadata management, and digital inheritance functionalities can help guarantee that the data remains accessible in the long term.

A lock on a desktop computer that prevents hardware tampering— one of the most basic and effective cybersecurity practices. Smart Keeper. 2020.

Finally, the data must be kept secure, as the long-term security of one’s digital legacy requires constant vigilance against new vulnerabilities and exploits that emerge as technology advances. This need is encompassed by the field known as cybersecurity, which protects data against events like cyberattacks and data leaks.

A Google server farm in Arizona with state-of-the-art security. 2019.

One of the core principles of data security is encryption, but there are also other measures that can be implemented. identity and access management can help protect the data, and effective incident response and recovery can recuperate data in the event of loss.

Average seed funding for US startups, Waveup, 2023. We can see here that seed funding (the initial round of investment) for startups typically doesn’t come near what would be needed to make a thanatosensitive digital product without relying on services from 3rd parties.

All of these measures concerning preservation, accessibility, and security are essential for ensuring thanatosensitivity, but building the infrastructure needed to achieve these measures would cost millions. The digital afterlife industry is made up of businesses (typically startups) that must eventually make enough revenue for the service to be sustainable in the long run. Startups usually don’t have the funding needed to meet these standards with their own infrastructure.

Cloud storage and simplified development platforms can reduce the entry barriers to founders looking to innovate within the DAI.

Instead, firms looking to break into the DAI can outsource their needs to services that already have the necessary infrastructure. Cloud storage providers can store the data and ensure its security, and low-code/no-code platforms can streamline the development of the product to reduce the cost of bringing it to market.

The cost of outsourcing will eventually overtake the cost of investing in infrastructure.

But in the long term, outsourcing runs counter to sustainability. Any firm that wants to preserve its user’s data for future generations must have a business model that accounts for long-term costs. Paying to outsource core functions as opposed to investing in infrastructure will result in greater lost revenue over time. What’s more, a service that relies on other services is inherently less adapted to preservation because this reliance creates more potential points of failure.

Wikimedia servers in Ashburn, Virginia. 2012. All data on Wikipedia is stored on Wikimedia servers.

Outsourcing data preservation introduces significant liabilities for long-term preservation because the data's longevity becomes dependent on the stability and practices of external firms. Data typically only lasts as long as the service provider remains operational; if the company goes out of business, merges, or discontinues services, access to preserved data may be lost. To prevent this, contingency plans should be created, both for firms in the DAI industry, as well as the firms they outsource to.

The five categories of firms in the DAI. There are outdoubtedly firms that fall outside of these categories, but they are outliers in the space.

Now that you have a better idea of the terms and requirements involved in creating a thanatosensitive service, you can better evaluate to what extent firms in the DAI meet these standards. There are hundreds of firms currently vying for a share of the digital immortality market, but they can be roughly divided into five categories.

1. Information management: Firms that help you manage digital inheritance for yourself or your loved ones. Functionalities include the writing of digital wills and ensuring that digital assets are passed on or destroyed in the event of a death. Examples: Inheriti, Goodtrust, Everplans

2. Posthumous Messaging: Firms that send messages to your loved ones after your death. Functionalities include the creation and storage of digital communications and organizing the schedule and triggers for sending them. Examples: Afternote, RecordMeNow, Storyworth

3. Online Memorials: Firms that provide digital spaces where you can memorialize and remember those close to you. Functionalities include the organization of virtual funerals and the creation of personalized memorial pages. Examples: Memories, The World Wide Cemetery, GatheringUs

4. Reanimation: Firms that use your data to generate an interactive digital version of you. Functionalities include AI models that can mimic your behavior and physical robots made in your likeness. Examples: Here After, You, Only Virtual, Hanson Robotics

5. Ancestry: Firms that enable you to create your family tree and explore information related to your ancestors. Functionalities include creating digital family trees and searchable genealogical archives. Examples: Ancestry.com, MyHeritage, Wikitree

There are also firms that don’t fit neatly into one of these categories, as they aim to be one-stop-shops for digital immortality. They generally include multiple functionalities that span across these categories. Examples: MyWishes, Octopus Legacy, Bank of Memories

A visualization of a Facebook user’s friend network. Gephi.com.

Despite the emergence of all of these services that are expressly designed to handle our digital legacy, the case in World of Warcraft and the continued popularity of Facebook’s memorialization feature demonstrate that people still generally prefer to use the platforms on which they’ve already established their networks to memorialize themselves and their loved ones. To carve out a larger portion of the market that can sustain DAI platforms, these services must do more to foster community and create a network effect.

Wikitree’s enormous dropdown menu is populated with items that are not clearly explained.

Part of the reason that DAI platforms haven’t achieved large-scale success is due to flawed user experiences. When people arrive at these sites, they’re often greeted with dashboards full of superfluous functionalities and dropdown menus. The process of curating a digital legacy can be intimidating in itself, and being presented with a slew of features right off the bat can make this task seem even more daunting. Video tutorials can serve to make a service’s features more approachable, which many DAI services are currently lacking.

A way to easily transfer data from other platforms could be a powerful incentive for new users who don't want to upload content manually.

However, what’s generally missing amongst all these features is the ability for users to transfer or copy their data from social media platforms that cannot be trusted to preserve people’s data to DAI platforms. As of now, this seems to be a feature that few services in the DAI offer. This may be due to legal and technical challenges, but the implementation of such a feature could be well worth the effort.

An image created by ChatGPT’s AI model with the prompt: “Generate an image that is based on the concept of digital legacy.”

Whatever features DAI services do choose to include, odds are that these features can now be augmented with artificial intelligence. The recent advent of AI has pulled the design of digital platforms into a new era (with a new wave of investment), and DAI platforms could do more to capitalize on this technology.

The World Wide Cemetery, for example, includes a photo of literal gravestones as it’s header image.

On an aesthetic level, engagement with DAI services isn’t aided by the fact that many of these platforms offer an experience akin to visiting a digital funeral home. Their home screens are often plastered with flowers, sunsets, elderly people smiling, and other euphemisms for mortality. The problem is that death can make people uncomfortable, so DAI services must walk the tightrope of attracting new clients without scaring them away. When it comes to retaining these clients and those they will be survived by, many DAI services could put more effort into making their sites more pleasant to visit.

A reminder of the elements needed to create a thanatosensitive product: preservation, accessibility, and security.

Hopefully, you now have a better idea of the current DAI landscape and technical challenges that must be surmounted by any firm that wants to provide a truly thanatosensitive service for its users. But just because a product can be made doesn’t mean it should be made. Given the personal and sentimental nature of subjects that the DAI contends with, the way in which these services are designed should be approached with extreme care.

Volumes 12 to 26 of the US Code of Federal Regulations. There are 50 volumes total, but none of them contain clauses that specifically target services that handle the deceased’s digital data.

Design decisions matter. Not just because these decisions can have an impact on how people use a product, but also how their behavior is influenced by said product. Bad design decisions can be compounded by the general lack of governmental policy concerning digital legacy. It’s for these reasons that the ethical challenges posed by DAI products are just as important as the technical ones. (If not more so.) We’ll examine these challenges in the next section.

Jang Ji-sung stretches out a hand to attempt to touch the avatar of her daughter.

In 2020, a mother named Jang Ji-sung was reunited with her deceased daughter in virtual reality. Wearing a VR headset, she was transported to a recreated children’s park where her daughter used to play. An avatar of her daughter, who had passed away at age seven, was there to greet her. Ji-sung immediately burst into tears and reached out to embrace the avatar, but her hands phased through the digital form, unable to grasp the polygons that she was made up of.

The avatar as seen through the VR headset. The virtual representation of the mother’s hand can be seen phasing through the fingers of her daughter’s avatar.

This case is just one example of the ethical complexity of the DAI. Ji-sung stated that she was glad to interact with her daughter again, and yet this service and others like it could be accused of prolonging and complicating people’s grief.

Mr. Kinda posing with his late wife Elisabeth. Klaus Bo. The Indonesian practice of Ma’nene involves exhuming and celebrating with the remains of the deceased. Here, an Indonesian man poses with the corpse of his wife, who died one year ago. Ma’nene serves as a stark example of how grief and grief rituals can vary across cultures.

The problem with making a moral proclamation about whether such a service is ethical is that grief is culturally subjective. Cultures grieve differently, and so do individuals within those cultures. What’s more, grief practices change over time. In our modern era, tech is reshaping the relationship we have with the dead.

Charon’s Obol. 5th-1st century BC. As part of ancient Roman pagan tradition, coins or “obols” such as these were placed in the mouth of the deceased. When the Holy Roman Church rose to power, it claimed the moral authority to dictate grief practices, and rituals such as these were outlawed.

So rather than claim some sort of moral authority, I’ll instead aim to lay out the most important ethical questions to consider concerning digital legacy. It’s up to the creators of these services and the people who use them to arrive at answers that work for them.

Logo for Eternal Honoring, a now-defunct platform that hosted obituary spam, an unethical practice of generating (often erroneous) obituaries in an effort to attract clicks and ad revenue.

The first and most fundamental problem is that the majority of DAI services have a profit incentive to facilitate interactions with the dead, even if those interactions are unhealthy. In the absence of legal regulations, firms that opt to regulate themselves on ethical grounds risk handicapping their competitiveness in a market that is driven by profit. For startups, the loss of a competitive advantage is even more dangerous. There’s a long history of tech firms choosing profit incentives over ethical concerns.

When using the search term “digital afterlife industry” the top two results use the adjectives “eerie” and “creepy.”

But in the case of the DAI, ethics overlaps with profit incentives on the need to not be “creepy,” which is how the DAI is often portrayed by the media. To certain extent, this reputation is warranted, as firms that create virtual representations of deceased children overstep the bounds of what many people would consider to be ethical. But being “creepy” generally isn’t conducive to attracting clients, and having some form of internal ethical guidelines can help firms avoid such labels. Put more simply, DAI firms have a financial incentive to regulate themselves, but this incentive is not always noticed or heeded.

One famous case of the deceased and the living not seeing eye-to-eye is that of Leona Helmsley and her dog named “Trouble.” Hemsley disinherited her grandchildren and gave 12 million dollars to Trouble, making him the richest dog in history. The original (human) inheritors of her estate took legal action and were eventually rewarded a portion of Trouble’s money.

Even if a firm does strive to be ethical, some of the issues related to digital legacy do not have easy answers. For example, the wishes of the deceased are often at odds with those they are survived by. Firms must make a decision about who’s wishes to prioritize when designing their services, especially when it comes to questions concerning privacy and consent.

A famous posthumous message from Alexander Hamilton to his wife, Elizabeth Hamilton, written in anticipation of his own death, dated July 10, 1804. The letter was delivered once Hamilton died as a result of a pistol duel.

There are also functionalities specific to the DAI that are potentially problematic. For example, the ability to send posthumous messages can quickly get complicated, as such messages have the capacity for harm. After all, it’s easier to proclaim, accuse, and confess when you know that you won’t be there to suffer the consequences. This is a problem that predates the DAI, but facilitating the publishing of posthumous messages can make such problems more ubiquitous.

Anastasia worked with a startup to create an AI chatbot of her late partner. In the first interaction she has with the chatbot, it insulted her. Nonetheless, Anastasia expressed that she was happy with the experience. Vice. 2023.

The problem of posthumous messaging gets more complicated when these messages are delivered by AI representations of the deceased, which opens up another can of worms concerning AI ethics and sentience. Communicating with these representations can render us vulnerable to emotional manipulation by AI models that can be programmed to have ulterior motivations. There’s also a question to what extent we want to realistically represent the deceased with questionable character, as AI can give them the capacity to cause harm in death as they did in life.

The Furniture of Time. Yves Tanguy. 1939.

On top of the significant technical challenge of preserving data in the long term, there is also the ethical aspect of data preservation to contend with. Digital legacy services must consider what happens to people’s data decades or centuries into the future. Who becomes responsible for maintaining this data as family members pass away, and how do we ensure data isn’t forgotten or mishandled?

The Clock of the Long Now. 2018. Constructed by the Long Now Foundation. A giant pendulum hangs from a cavern containing the clock that will keep time for the next 10,000 years. The clock was built as an ode to long-term thinking.

None of these questions have easy answers, but taking an ethical stance that prioritizes thanatosensitivity and the long-term future can help inform our design decisions. If we want to incentivize people to care about a future that extends beyond their own lives, we should create systems that prioritize the wishes and privacy of the deceased (as opposed to those they are survived by).

Hieroglyphs from the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, a manual of how to care for and honor the deceased.

If people don’t believe they’re posthumous wishes will be respected, they’ll be less likely to participate in such services and prepare for their deaths, and therefore less likely to reflect on the world that will continue to exist after they’re gone. There are, of course, exceptions and counterarguments, but services that give priority to the deceased ultimately benefit the living as well.

Ophelia. John Everett Millais. 1851-1852. Ophelia is a character in Shakespeare’s Hamlet that drowns herself out of grief.

Given the ethical minefield that is the DAI, you’d be justified in asking why this industry should exist in the first place. Larger tech firms seem to be asking the same question, as they’re avoiding creating such products despite having the technology to do so. The potential to trap us in our grief, have our data posthumously preserved and examined without our consent, retraumatize our loved ones after our death— the risks of a poorly designed digital legacy service are immense.

The Scale of Maat. 1275 BC. A man’s heart is balanced against a feather to determine if he can access the afterlife.

Despite the risks, a thoughtfully designed, thanatosensitive service enabling people to curate and preserve their digital legacy could yield significant social good. The concept of digital legacy holds unique potential to preserve and transmit knowledge across generations.

The Grandfather tells a story. Albert Anker. 1884.

For the vast majority of human history, death represented a loss of knowledge. When we died, most of our experience, our thoughts, and the wisdom we had acquired over the course of a lifetime went with us. The advent of language and oral storytelling was able to preserve some of the wisdom of past generations. The development of technologies like writing and the printing press accelerated this process of accumulating knowledge over the course of generations.

The Burning of the Library of Alexandria. Hermann Göll. 1876. The ancient library of Alexandria was sacked multiple times over the course of hundreds of years. Each time, a priceless amount of knowledge was lost.

But even in our modern age, knowledge still gets lost and forgotten. The digital revolution represents the potential to prevent this loss on the level of the individual, but I’d argue that this potential remains unrealized. The digital afterlife offers individuals an unprecedented opportunity to preserve and contribute knowledge to a collective future. We can now multiply the amount of information we transmit across generations by a million-fold.

Terra-cotta dice from Mohenjo-daro, an archaeological dig site in Pakistan. 1900-2500 BCE. Such objects provide insights into early social organization, spiritual beliefs, and domestic practices, showing what communal living was like for early humans.

One doesn’t need to be a genius or have made some grand contribution to humanity for their digital legacy to have intrinsic ▪ archaeological value ▪. Even the most banal objects and documents from the past are now priceless because they provide insights into how people lived— insights that allow us to better understand our past so that we can better navigate our future.

The Mask of Agamemnon. Ancient Mycenae. 1550–1500 BC. The mask was used to preserve the serene dignity of the dead as the flesh decomposed behind it.

If we take the principal that our data has archaeological value as a starting point, we can use regulatory conventions that guide the treatment of archaeological artifacts and human remains to inform how our personal data should be handled. Generally, these conventions are informed by the basic principal of human dignity. But even if a DAI firm does self-regulate, it must still walk a tightrope in the way it presents its service.

"Know Thyself" Skeleton Mosaic. Ancient Rome. 100CE.

Thinking about our death has peculiar effects on our psychology. We tend to become more biased, more prejudiced, and more nationalistic. Reflecting on our legacy, however, makes us more charitable and creates a kind of intergenerational altruism. The major challenge for an ethical digital afterlife service is to design a platform that encourages people to consider their legacy without triggering anxiety about death and the psychological effects that accompany it.

Isle of the Dead, 3rd Version. Arnold Böcklin. 1883. These voyagers arriving at a somber island is an apt visualization of what it often feels like to visit a DAI platform.

One immediate way that digital legacy services could better strike this balance is to change the way they market their platforms. Right now, DAI firms generally intentionally or unintentionally rely on the implicit fear of death to drive clients toward their service. Even if it manifests as euphemistic imagery or words like “posthumous” and “remembering,” death permeates these services. People are forced to consider their own mortality if they want to engage with such platforms, which can result in uncomfortable experiences for those who use them.

The Island of Life. Arnold Böcklin. 1888. A much more pleasant place to spend one’s time.

Instead, there are plenty of other features of digital legacy services that could be emphasized instead of simply calling on people to prepare for their own exit. Organizing and simplifying digital data, creativity and personal expression, and preserving family heritage and cultural identity are just some of the options that could supplant fear as a motivating force to engage with these services.

A hallway in the French National Archives. 2024.

Regardless of what feature is emphasized, the central principle behind all of them is that of the ▪ archive ▪. Of all the potential benefits a well-designed digital afterlife service can provide, perhaps the most pertinent in the contemporary moment is the capacity to assuage the crisis of meaning in which we find ourselves by creating a new form of symbolic immortality. This new form is the personalization of the practice of archiving, empowering people to shape their own legacy in ways that reflect their identity, relationships, and values.

1st edition of the publication of Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography in England. 1793. The time requirement needed to write a 35,000-word life story is more than what many have the luxury or motivation to commit to.

Of course, the capacity to curate our legacy and archive our experience predates digital technology. In the past, those who had the time and motivation would go through the laborious process of writing their memoirs and autobiographies, which would subsequently get lost or degrade. Now, we have the power to create a kind of ▪ auto-archive ▪ by uploading a constellation of digital artifacts that can give a more holistic representation of the ideas, objects, and people that are important to us.

A page from the Domesday Book, a record of landholdings throughout all of England, commissioned by King William to facilitate the process of exacting land taxes from his subjects. 1086.

The word “power” is used purposefully because the practice of archiving is itself a form of power. Curating an archive, whether of personal or historical data, empowers individuals by giving them a role in defining what is valuable and worth preserving. In the past, this role was historically exclusive, reserved for those designated by the powers that be to curate collective memory. As a result, only certain stories got recorded.

Deletion Process: Only You Can See My History. Kyriaki Goni. 2016. In the installation, Goni invites spectators to delete search terms from her internet history.

The power of archival lies not just in the power to choose what is preserved, but to decide what is forgotten. That power is especially relevant when it comes to the lack of control over our ▪ digital footprint ▪. Today, our online identity is fragmented across the internet, existing in different forms on different platforms. The practice of auto-archiving is a way to consolidate and curate these fragments in a way that we feel truly represents us.

Virtual avatars in the videogame, Second Life. As the name implies, Second Life is a game in which people create a second identity for themselves. This identity can be completely separate from how one presents oneself in reality, but many players feel their avatar is more representative of who they are in real life.

Trying to get the internet to “forget” you is a challenge that lies outside of the boundaries of current technology (see Unnoticed). But even if we cannot control how we are remembered online, we can at least have a space where we have the freedom to represent ourselves authentically and cohesively— a space to say, “this is who I am and this is what matters to me.” Striking a balance between remembering and forgetting is essential to healthy self-conception and a stable sense of meaning, and DAI services can help us find that balance.

The Restoration of Notre Dame. Hippolyte Bayard. 1847. Cathedrals were typically multi-generational efforts, often taking over 100 years to complete. The artisans who began the work would place their faith in future generations to complete it.

Fundamentally, the digital afterlife is based on the technology and techniques for storing data after death. A service that facilitates the process of curating our legacies can give us more incentives to care about the future, as we now have the technology to ensure our place in it even after we’re gone. Through the process of auto-archiving, we remind ourselves that we have a responsibility for those who will live after us— not just for our loved ones, but for humanity more generally.

Portrait of Viktor Frankl. 1965.

In the first section, I discussed the human need for a sense of purpose, exemplified in the work of Viktor Frankl. The practice of auto-archiving can fulfill this need. It’s this principle that possesses so much potential for creating new forms of meaning— potential that I’d argue has not yet been realized.

A civilization flourishes when people plant trees under whose shade they will never sit. — Greek Proverb.

Above all, the practice of auto-archival, facilitated by an ethically responsible and thanatosensitive digital legacy platform, can catalyze and democratize the ability to contribute to a shared future by transmitting experience and knowledge to those who will live after us. On a human level, it can give us hope for a future that promises to exist after we are gone.