Remember You: Understanding How Users Use Deadbots to Reconstruct Memories of the Deceased

2026-03-01

AI Summary

This study investigates how mourners actively construct and reshape memories through interactions with AI-powered digital replicas of the deceased, known as “Deadbots,” rather than passively consuming AI-generated content. Drawing on in-depth interviews and thematic analysis of 26 Deadbot users, the research reveals that individuals dynamically co-create idealized digital representations by selectively inputting information, engaging in ongoing interaction, and cognitively supplementing gaps—blending authentic memories with personal expectations. These processes occur within intimate spaces where unresolved emotions are negotiated. The paper is the first to systematically articulate the mourner’s agentic role in memory construction within AI-mediated bereavement, introducing the novel phenomenon of “blurring between AI-generated and authentic memories.” It highlights critical ethical challenges concerning memory authenticity and psychological dependency, offering vital theoretical and practical insights for the deployment of generative AI in digital mourning contexts.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Embodied AI
• Humans and AI: Game Design — Virtual Humans, NPCs and Autonomous Characters
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Affective Computing

Application Category

• Social Networks and Social Media: Generative AI / large language models and their impact on social systems
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Economic ramifications for generative AI infrastructure and applications
• Semantics and Knowledge: Data modeling to support human-machine intelligence, including LLMs agents, intelligent system behavior, explanations, and user-friendly interactions

Abstract

Generative AI has enabled ``Deadbots'', offering mourners an interactive way to engage with simulations of the deceased. While existing research often emphasizes ethics, less is known about how bereaved individuals construct and reshape memory through such interactions. To address this gap, this study draws on in-depth interviews with 26 users. Findings reveal that users are not passive recipients but active constructors of the deceased's digital representation. Through selective input, ongoing interactive adjustments and imaginative cognitive supplementation, they build an idealized digital figure blending authentic memories with personal expectations. Deadbots provide a private space to grieve without social pressure and a channel to address unresolved emotions. In this process, users' memory of the deceased evolves dynamically: from initial reinforcement and idealization to a later stage where AI-generated new memories blur with authentic recollections, reflecting a complex desire for connection through an artificial medium. This blurring raises ethical concerns regarding memory distortion and dependency, underscoring the need for future clinical research on the long-term impact of AI-mediated grieving.

Problem

• Deadbots
• memory reconstruction
• grief
• generative AI
• digital representation

Innovation

• Deadbots
• generative AI
• memory reconstruction
• digital bereavement
• AI-mediated grieving