On Digital Immortality’s (Un)Broken Connection. Exploring the Potential for Meaning-Making Cooperation Beyond Life and Death

This paper undertakes a comprehensive exploration of Digital Immortality, which has become an increasingly significant topic within the thanatology and the sociology of death. As technological advancements continue accelerating, the notion of immortality— preserving memories and honouring the legacies of those who have passed—has emerged as a focal point in contemporary scientific discourse. The digital landscape, characterised by its virtually limitless storage capacity, provides an unprecedented opportunity to preserve and access data related to deceased individuals, enabling the living to connect with and remember their loved ones in new ways. Historically, the ability to maintain the memory of individuals was primarily restricted to traditional forms of monumentalisation, such as tombstones, memorials, and biographies. These forms typically aimed to support a person’s memory fixedly, resulting in an intact and unchanging representation over time. However, the framework for memory preservation is now undergoing a significant transformation, mainly due to dramatic advancements in artificial intelligence technologies. This evolution signifies a substantial shift in our interactions with the memories of those who have died, expanding how we can memorialise and engage with their legacy. Previously, social media platforms such as Facebook and early blogging sites allowed individuals to maintain a limited connection with their deceased loved ones through shared memories, posts, and photographs. Nevertheless, introducing artificial intelligence—especially in the form of modern chatbots or “thanabots”—fundamentally redefines these interactions. Scholars are increasingly examining the implications of this complex development as these AI-driven conversations become genuinely interactive and may provide deeper insights into our relationships with the deceased. This paper aims to investigate both the specificities and the limitations of this novel type of interaction, shedding light on how digital immortality resembles or diverges from past practices of memorialisation. Moreover, it emphasises the continuity of intentions and perspectives present in the phenomenological debates of the last century, illustrating how our understanding of memory and death continues to evolve. By engaging in this retrospective analysis, this work contributes to the ongoing discourse surrounding digital immortality and encourages a more nuanced and cautious approach to the ethical and emotional implications of these emerging technologies.