Animated Personas and Remnant Personhood: The Case of Deathbots

There has been considerable debate over both the ontology and ethical permissibility of so-called ‘deathbots,’ ‘thanabots,’ or ‘Interactive Personality Constructs of the Dead’ (IPCDs) - AI-driven software programs that emulate the conversational style of a person who has died. This paper explores two possible candidates for the ontological status of IPCDs: ‘remnant personhood,’ as recently argued for by Jurgis Karpus and Anna Strasser, and ‘animated persona,’ a category recently articulated by Masahiro Morioka. Both candidates are shown to pick out important features of IPCDs, while also having distinctive drawbacks. I conclude by exploring the possibility that these categories, instead of being exclusive, might be complementary lenses through which we can consider IPCDs – and that this dual focus helps us to better understand where the ethical and psychological dangers of this technology may lie.