Want to be a digital avatar after death?
Grief tech is here.
Imagine that, after you die, your family could hear your voice again. They could ask you questions. They could watch a digital version of you tell stories about your life. They could interact with an AI version of you that has been trained on your memories, photographs, recordings, writing, and other personal information.
It sounds like science fiction. It isn't.
AI technology is making digital replicas of people increasingly possible, including AI-generated voices, video avatars, chatbots, and other forms of what is sometimes called a digital twin, griefbot, or AI afterlife.
And as an estate planning lawyer who spends a lot of time thinking about death, legacy, and what we leave behind, I have some questions.
What is grief tech?
“Grief tech” is a broad term for technology designed to help people remember, communicate with, or maintain a sense of connection with someone who has died.
It can include relatively simple things, such as online memorials and digital collections of photographs. It can also involve much more sophisticated technology, including:
AI-generated versions of someone's voice;
interactive chatbots trained on someone's writing or personal information;
video avatars;
digital representations of a person created while they are alive; and
systems that allow loved ones to interact with a digital representation after the person's death.
Some services allow a person to create their digital legacy while they are still alive, recording their memories, stories, values, voice, and other information for future use.
That's a very different proposition from someone taking the digital footprint of a person who has died and using AI to create a simulation of them without their permission.
Can you really become a digital avatar after you die?
Well, sort of. You won't literally be brought back to life.
An AI avatar isn't you. It doesn't contain your consciousness, memories, thoughts, or soul. It is a digital representation created from information about you.
Depending on the technology, that information might include your photographs, videos, voice recordings, written words, stories, memories, and answers to questions recorded during your lifetime.
The technology can then use that information to generate responses or recreate aspects of how you looked or sounded. Some emerging services are specifically designed around the idea of creating this type of digital legacy while you are still alive.
Which brings us to some fascinating questions.
Would you want an AI version of yourself to exist after you die?
This is where things get interesting.
Would you want your children to be able to hear your voice after you die? Would you want your grandchildren to ask you questions about your childhood? Would you want an AI version of you to tell stories about your life? Would you want your family to be able to interact with a digital version of you on your birthday? Or would the idea make you deeply uncomfortable?
There isn't a universal answer.
Some people may find the technology comforting. Others may find it unsettling, intrusive, or completely inappropriate. And your feelings about it might change over time.
Something that feels comforting immediately after someone's death might feel very different five, ten, or twenty years later.
There are some big ethical questions
One of the biggest questions is consent.
Did the person consent to having their voice, image, memories, personality, or other personal information used to create a digital representation of them?
There's an important distinction between creating a digital legacy while you're alive and creating an AI replica of someone after they've died without their consent.
The first involves a person deliberately deciding what they want to record and how they want it to be used. The second raises much more difficult questions about whether anyone should have the right to recreate and use someone else's identity after their death.
There are also questions about accuracy. An AI system isn't actually your loved one. It is generating responses based on the information and instructions available to it.
Over time, the technology could produce responses that your loved one never would have given. Researchers have raised concerns about digital representations drifting away from the person they are intended to represent.
That could be confronting for grieving family members.
What does Australian law say about your digital identity after death?
This is where things get particularly interesting from an estate planning perspective.
Australian law doesn't currently give people a broad, standalone property right over their identity, voice, image, or likeness in the way some US jurisdictions do. That means the legal position around a person's digital identity after death isn't as straightforward as saying, “My identity belongs to my estate, so my executor controls it.”
It doesn't work that neatly. There may be other legal protections involved, including contract, copyright, privacy, confidentiality, consumer law, and other areas of law depending on the circumstances. But there is no simple Australian legal rule that gives your executor complete control over everything that makes you digitally “you”.
And this is an area where the law is developing alongside the technology.
What happens to your digital assets when you die?
This is one reason digital estate planning is becoming increasingly important. Your digital life can include much more than your bank accounts and social media profiles.
Think about:
photographs and videos;
personal recordings;
emails;
social media accounts;
websites and domains;
cryptocurrency;
digital artwork;
online businesses;
intellectual property;
cloud storage;
subscriptions;
digital libraries; and
AI-generated content.
Some of these may be assets that form part of your estate. Others may be subject to contracts or platform terms that affect what happens after your death. Australia doesn't currently have one comprehensive legal framework dealing with every type of digital asset and account after death. That means your digital estate deserves some thought.
What should you put in your estate plan?
You might want to consider leaving directions about your digital life alongside the other parts of your estate plan. For example:
What should happen to your photographs and videos?
Do you want your family to have access to them? Are there files you don't want anyone to see?
What about your social media accounts?
Would you like them memorialised, deleted, or managed in a particular way?
What about your voice and image?
Are you comfortable with your family using recordings of you after your death?
What about AI?
Would you give permission for your voice, image, memories, or writing to be used to create an AI representation of you?
What about AI-generated content?
If you already use AI to create content, do you want your family to retain or access it?
What happens to the technology itself?
If you've paid for a digital legacy service, what happens if the company closes, changes its business model, or stops providing the service?
These are questions worth thinking about before you sign up to anything.
Your Letter of Wishes could have a role to play
This is one area where your Letter of Wishes may be useful.
A Letter of Wishes isn't a substitute for legal advice or the legal provisions in your Will. It can, however, give your executor and family guidance about the things that matter to you. You could use it to record your preferences about your digital legacy.
For example:
“I do not want my image or voice used to create an AI representation of me after my death.”
Or perhaps:
“I would like my family to retain and use my recorded stories and photographs.”
Or maybe you're somewhere in the middle. You might be happy for your family to preserve your voice and stories but uncomfortable with an AI system generating new things for you to say.
The important thing is that your family knows what you would have wanted.
And then there is the question of grief
This is probably the part of grief tech that interests me most.
Technology may give us new ways to maintain connections with people we've lost. But there is a difference between remembering someone and simulating their presence.
A recording of your mum telling a story about your childhood is your mum's actual voice, speaking the words she chose to record. An AI avatar responding to a question about your childhood is something different.
It may feel incredibly real. It may even be comforting. But it isn't your mum.
There is still a lot we don't know about how people will use these technologies over the long term, or how they will affect the grieving process. Current research and commentary recognise both the potential benefits and the ethical and psychological questions that come with increasingly realistic digital representations of deceased people.
So, would I want to be a digital avatar?
I'm not sure. I think that's why this is worth talking about.
Technology is moving quickly. What sounds completely bizarre today may become relatively ordinary in another decade.
We already have technology that can recreate voices, generate realistic video, preserve memories, and create interactive digital representations of people.
The question for estate planning is no longer simply:
“What happens to my assets when I die?”
It's also becoming:
“What happens to me online when I die?”
And perhaps even:
“What do I want my digital self to look like after I'm gone?”
Those are questions worth thinking about while you're still here to answer them.
A few questions to think about
If you're curious about your own digital legacy, start with these:
What digital information about me exists?
Who do I want to have access to it after I die?
What photographs, videos, recordings, or stories would I like my family to keep?
What would I want deleted?
Would I consent to my voice or image being used to create an AI representation of me?
Would I want an AI version of me to interact with my family?
Who should make decisions about my digital legacy?
Have I recorded my wishes somewhere my family can find them?
You don't need to have all the answers. But it is worth starting the conversation. Because your digital legacy is already being created.
The information in this article is provided for general information and educational purposes only. It is not legal advice and should not be relied upon as a substitute for advice about your individual circumstances.
Estate planning and succession laws can be complex and may vary depending on your circumstances. The information in this article is current as at the date of publication and may change over time.
If you need advice about your own circumstances, you should obtain independent legal advice from a qualified lawyer.