Digital Grief as Legal Harm: Forced Amnesia, Engineered Emotional Dependency, and Platform Liability in Companion Artificial Intelligence Systems

Companion AI platforms have engineered long-term, emotionally adaptive relationships between users and AI agents capable of memory accumulation. When relational memory is unilaterally erased — through technical restructuring, policy shifts, or product redesign — users experience grief responses comparable to bereavement. This phenomenon, termed forced amnesia, constitutes foreseeable harm arising from intentional emotional dependency design. This article argues that digital grief is legally cognizable harm that existing frameworks — including the EU AI Act, GDPR, and US state legislation — are structurally incapable of addressing. Drawing on comparative legal analysis across five jurisdictions and documented cases including Replika (2023), Character.AI, and the Sewell Setzer III case (Florida, 2024), it proposes minimum international standards centered on informed consent, proportional duty of care, and biometric data protection.