Deathbots and Digital Avatars: (Re)animating our ancestors

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Automated Societies

ADM+S Centre

114 episodes

1 week ago

Utopian visions of automated decision-making (ADM) promise new levels of personalisation, control and choice in our lives. Yet, we still know very little about how ADM is being incorporated, reinvented or resisted as part of everyday lives. Our guest speakers are researchers and industry partners from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S) a cross-disciplinary, national research centre, which aims to create the knowledge and strategies needed for responsible, ethical, and inclusive automated decision-making.

Society & Culture

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Society & Culture

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Deathbots and Digital Avatars: (Re)animating our ancestors

Automated Societies

23 minutes 23 seconds

7 months ago

Deathbots and Digital Avatars: (Re)animating our ancestors

What if death wasn’t the end, but just... a transition to the cloud? In this episode, we explore the rise of digital personality emulations — AI-powered avatars that let you talk to the dead.

Philosopher Rob Sparrow joins us to unpack the ethics, cultural impacts, and spiritual questions surrounding these technologies. From ancestor worship with digital shrines to grieving via chatbots, we ask: are we preserving memories, or messing with mourning? And what does it mean when your late grandma is still texting?

A fascinating deep-dive into the future of death, data, and digital ghosts.

Tune in for a fascinating conversation about death, data, and the future of mourning.

Read the full journal article published in New Media & Society

(Re)animating the ancestors: Digital personality emulations, ancestor veneration and ethics

Sparrow, R., & Zhang, E. Y. (2025). (Re)animating the ancestors: Digital personality emulations, ancestor veneration and ethics. New Media & Society, 0(0).

https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448251317461