Resurrection consent: It's time to talk about our digital afterlives

The question of whether friends, family, and partners should be able to digitally resurrect the deceased is being examined in a new study, highlighting the need for further research and legal discussion on the topic. The concept of digital resurrection, made popular by a 2014 episode of Black Mirror, is no longer a far reach of reality. Instances such as the failed 2017 venture by Eternime to create a "Skype for the dead" indicate the progression of technology in this direction, previously hampered by the unpreparedness of artificial intelligence algorithms and societal attitudes. In 2024, however, amidst the growing popularity of programs like Chat GPT, the topic of digital resurrection is once again coming to the forefront.

The study, conducted by Dr. Masaki Iwasaki of the Harvard Law School and now an assistant professor at Seoul National University, was published in the Asian Journal of Law and Economics. It evaluated how the deceased's consent plays a role in public attitudes towards digital resurrection based on a hypothetical scenario wherein a woman dies in a car accident and is proposed to be digitally resurrected, with her consent unclear. Interestingly, while consent boosted the societal acceptability, the study also revealed a significant portion of respondents disapproving of their own potential digital resurrection or any digital resurrection, even with consent.

The existing disconnect between laws and public sentiment on the matter also became evident, as the general sentiment of respecting the wishes of the deceased is not legally protected in many countries. This has been demonstrated in instances such as the digital recreation of John Lennon in Forrest Gump or the hologram of Amy Winehouse. The introduction of technology like the "You, Only Virtual" (YOV) that allows creating a chatbot using an individual's messages, emails, and voice records, and Microsoft's 2020 patent to render chatbots from data of living people, historical figures, and fictional characters into 2D or 3D, reinforces the need for legal clarity on the issue. Iwasaki expressed the necessity to explore the rights that should be protected before setting rules to that effect, proposing the opt-in rule requiring the deceased's consent for digital resurrection as a potential measure. His future research will delve deeper into such issues, looking also at the digital resurrection of celebrities.