Imaginaries of Immortality in the Age of AI: an Intercultural Analysis

How is immortality resignifying by, and with, digital technologies? Coping with, avoiding, or transcending death is one of the defining features of all human life and any form of social and cultural organisation. In the 21st century, AI significantly impacts these complex practices, introducing a range of new strategies for achieving immortality. From posthumous avatars to thanabots, deadbots, and griefbots, AI-driven technology is involved in mediating death—one of the most personal, intimate, and, so far, inevitable experiences in the lives of every individual. Understanding these changes, shaping them, and responding wisely to them requires a new interdisciplinary and intercultural dialogue.

However, this dialogue is currently dominated by US-based tech companies and Anglophone culture. To state it clearly, the most urgent issue around AI, death, and immortality today is to address how the data of the deceased are used and will be used in the future. Imaginaries of Immortality in the Age of AI: an Intercultural Analysis seeks to challenge the idea of a universal ‘we’, positing that cultural factors play a critical role in determining the meaning of AI for our relationship to mortality. The project is funded by the Schmidt Sciences Foundation and led by Dr. Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basińska. Other team members include Dr Stephen Cave, Dr Toamsz Hollanek and Saide Mobayed Vega.

The project seeks to answer two crucial questions: (1) How do people from three Eastern countries perceive dominant Anglophone digital immortality projects, and to what extent do these projects reflect their interests and concerns? (2) What are the alternative ways of conceptualising digital immortality in the age of AI that arise from different cultural backgrounds?

To achieve the project’s objectives, three intercultural research workshops and focus groups with experts and non-experts will be held in Poland (November 2024), India (February 2025), and China (April 2025). The geographical scope of the research was based on the criterion of contrast, for it is vital to trigger intercultural conversations beyond Western countries.