Synthetic afterlives: deathbots as affective infrastructures of memory

Kidd, Jenny ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0188-2140 2025. Synthetic afterlives: deathbots as affective infrastructures of memory. Memory, Mind & Media Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

This short research article interrogates the rise of digital platforms that enable ‘synthetic afterlives’, with a focus on how deathbots - AI-driven avatar interactions grounded in personal data and recordings - reshape memory practices. Drawing on socio-technical walkthroughs of four platforms - Almaya, HereAfter, Séance AI, and You, Only Virtual - we analyse how they frame, archive, and algorithmically regenerate memories. Our findings reveal a central tension: between preserving the past as a fixed archive and continually reanimating it through generative AI. Our walkthroughs demonstrate how these services commodify remembrance, reducing memory to consumer-driven interactions designed for affective engagement, while obscuring the ethical, epistemological and emotional complexities of digital commemoration. In doing so, they enact reductive forms of memory that are embedded within platform economies and algorithmic imaginaries.

Item Type:	Article
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Schools > Journalism, Media and Culture
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
ISSN:	2635-0238
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	24 September 2025
Date of Acceptance:	23 September 2025
Last Modified:	25 Sep 2025 16:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/181302

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