# Deadbot

> Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Deadbot
> Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Deadbot.md
> Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadbot
> Source revision: 1348103239
> License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

{{Short description|Avatar of a dead person created by AI}}

A '''deadbot''', '''deathbot''', or '''griefbot''' is a [digital avatar](/source/digital_avatar), created with [artificial intelligence](/source/artificial_intelligence), which resembles a person who is dead.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.npr.org/2025/08/26/nx-s1-5508355/ai-dead-people-chatbots-videos-parkland-court |title=AI 'deadbots' are persuasive — and researchers say they're primed for monetization |date=August 26, 2025 |publisher=[NPR](/source/NPR) |author=Chloe Veltman}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hollanek |first=Tomasz |last2=Nowaczyk-Basińska |first2=Katarzyna |date=2024-05-09 |title=Griefbots, Deadbots, Postmortem Avatars: on Responsible Applications of Generative AI in the Digital Afterlife Industry |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-024-00744-w |journal=Philosophy & Technology |language=en |volume=37 |issue=2 |pages=63 |doi=10.1007/s13347-024-00744-w |issn=2210-5441|doi-access=free }}</ref> Griefbots employ [natural language processing](/source/natural_language_processing) and [machine-learning](/source/machine-learning) techniques to approximate the style and personality of a deceased person. They may appear as [chatbot](/source/chatbot)s, [voice assistant](/source/voice_assistant)s, or animated [avatar](/source/avatar)s, and are often trained on an individual's digital remains.

== History ==
Among the earliest researchers, Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad of the [University of Washington](/source/University_of_Washington), developed the Grandpa Bot project, a conversational simulation of his late father designed for his children to interact with.<ref>{{cite conference |last=Ahmad |first=M. A. |year=2016 |title=After Death: Big Data and the Promise of Resurrection by Proxy |conference=CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems |doi=10.1145/2851581.2892591}}</ref>

Other efforts include journalist James Vlahos's Dadbot, which evolved into the commercial platform HereAfter AI. [Hossein Rahnama](/source/Hossein_Rahnama)'s Augmented Eternity research at [MIT Media Lab](/source/MIT_Media_Lab) and [Toronto Metropolitan University](/source/Toronto_Metropolitan_University), and game designer [Jason Rohrer](/source/Jason_Rohrer)'s  "Project December", have enabled users to converse with language-model representations of loved ones. Early commercial projects such as Eternime, founded by Marius Ursache, also popularized the notion of interactive [digital immortality](/source/digital_immortality).

== Cultural and societal impact ==
Scholars have proposed frameworks and critiques addressing the ethics of these technologies. Tomasz Hollanek and Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basińska developed a design-ethics taxonomy distinguishing the data donor, data recipient, and interactant. Edina Harbinja and [Lilian Edwards](/source/Lilian_Edwards) formalized the concept of [post-mortem privacy](/source/post-mortem_privacy), and Carl J. Öhman at the [Oxford Internet Institute](/source/Oxford_Internet_Institute) studied the management of large-scale digital remains.

Cultural acceptance varies: while some view them as expressions of remembrance, others regard them as unsettling or ethically problematic. Concerns have been raised about deadbots' potential for creating psychological harm.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Hern |first=Alex |date=2024-05-09 |title=Digital recreations of dead people need urgent regulation, AI ethicists say |url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/may/09/digital-recreations-of-dead-people-need-urgent-regulation-ai-ethicists-say |access-date=2025-09-16 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> Griefbots are considered part of the phenomenon of [artificial intimacy](/source/artificial_intimacy).

== See also ==
* [Online memorial](/source/Online_memorial)
* [Simulacrum](/source/Simulacrum)
* [Digital afterlife](/source/Digital_afterlife)

==References==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* [https://www.hereafter.ai HereAfter AI official website]
* [https://humanities.org/spark/artificial-intelligence-death-grief/ Humanities Washington – When Your Grandpa Is a Bot]

Category:Artificial intelligence
Category:Monuments and memorials
Category:Simulation

{{ai-stub}}
{{death-stub}}

---
Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Deadbot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadbot) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadbot?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.