Meta has patented an AI that will continue posting after your death A digital clone could comment on the posts of deceased users

If there is one certainty, it is death — but not for Meta and the dystopian world we are living in. The news coming from XXXX seems straight out of an episode of Black Mirror, yet it is the reality we are increasingly stepping into. In December 2023, Meta obtained a patent for an artificial intelligence system capable of simulating a user’s activity on social networks when that user is «absent from the system, for example during a long break or if they have passed away». The Instagram account of a deceased person could continue to comment, like, and post thanks to the patent signed by Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth.

According to Business Insider, the patent describes how a large language model could simulate a person’s social media activity by analyzing their historical data on the platform, creating a digital clone capable of interacting with real people and responding to their posts as if it were alive. «The impact on users is much more severe and permanent if that user is deceased and will never return to the social networking platform», the patent states. The paradox is that it is being framed as a good deed — and for Meta, the solution is to pretend that the deceased person is still there.

The problem with grief tech

The patent also contemplates the possibility of creating multiple models for the same user, anchored to different stages of life. Separate versions of your digital self trained on data collected when the user was 20, 30, or 40 years old. As if death were not already complicated enough to process, Meta offers the possibility of going back in time. A Meta spokesperson told Business Insider that «we do not currently have plans to move forward with this example», yet the very existence of the patent reveals something important about where major tech companies are heading.

It also raises disturbing questions about who truly owns our digital identity. Meta is not alone in this territory. The “grief tech” industry is rapidly expanding. Startups such as HereAfter AI, Eternos, and StoryFile already offer services to create interactive avatars of the deceased. In China, companies like Super Brain allow users to “digitally resurrect” a deceased person for just 20 yuan (around 3 dollars), using only 30 seconds of audiovisual material.

But researchers at Cambridge University warn that this area of AI is «an ethical minefield». Dr. Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basińska of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence explains that «it is important to prioritize the dignity of the deceased and ensure that it is not violated by the financial motives of digital afterlife services». Cambridge researchers have outlined three disturbing scenarios in which griefbots could harm the living: avatars created without the deceased’s consent that begin displaying advertisements (for example, a grandmother suggesting ordering food from a specific delivery service); chatbots that disturb children by insisting that a deceased parent is still with them; AI simulations that create emotional bonds so strong that protocols may be required to “terminate” the relationship in order to provide emotional closure.

Who owns your digital data when you die?

The Meta patent also raises another question: what happens to our accounts and digital data when we die? The legal answer is complex and varies drastically depending on where you live. In the United States, the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA) grants fiduciaries the right to access and manage the deceased’s digital data and assets. But according to Digital Watch Observatory, there are issues: the act could violate the privacy of the deceased, and not all states have adopted it.

In Europe, the GDPR does not explicitly apply to the data of the deceased or fails to clarify its applicability after death. In practice, families often have little choice but to adhere to the platform’s terms of service, unless the deceased left instructions and credentials behind. It is within this legislative uncertainty that Meta, nearly a decade ago, introduced the “legacy contact” feature, allowing users to designate someone to manage their account after death — leading up to the 2023 patent.

It is still unclear whether Meta will ever implement its patent to make the dead keep posting, but the fact that it was filed reveals where we are heading as a society. A world where the line between the living and the dead becomes increasingly blurred, where tech companies can monetize grief, and where our digital clones may outlive us. The question is not whether technology will make it possible. The question is whether we should want it. And if one day someone comments on your Instagram posts, how will you know whether it is really them — or just an algorithm trained to sound like them?