Digital Ghosts: What We Leave Behind in an Online Afterlife

As humanists, many of us hold a simple yet profound belief: when we die, we’re gone. There is no celestial reunion, no reincarnation, no spiritual continuation. Death marks the final chapter of our individual story, and in that acceptance, we find meaning in making the most of our time here and now.

But in the digital age, death isn’t quite the disappearing act it once was.

Our photos linger. Our texts stay stored. Our browsing habits are archived. Social media profiles survive us, often morphing into digital memorials. In some cases, our voices, gestures, and patterns of speech can be mimicked by artificial intelligence. We are witnessing the rise of “digital ghosts” – fragments of lives that continue to echo long after a body is buried or cremated. These phenomena raise fascinating and troubling questions for secular thinkers: What does it mean to grieve when the dead remain online? How should we ethically treat digital remnants of those who can no longer give or withdraw consent? And in an age of AI-enhanced memory, are we truly honoring the dead or engineering illusions?

The Data We Leave Behind

In 2019, researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute predicted that by the end of the century, Facebook could host more dead users than living ones. Already, the platform offers an option to “memorialize” accounts. A deceased person’s profile remains accessible, frozen in time. Friends and family can post memories and messages, often treating the page as a digital headstone. It’s a space for reflection and remembrance, but it also blurs lines: are we writing to a person, or to their shadow?

Outside of social media, death doesn’t stop data collection: emails remain stored, smart devices retain user preferences, photo streams, playlists, GPS histories, and even ride-share ratings persist in the cloud. The average person now leaves behind a sprawling digital footprint, a dispersed, disorganized ghost story written across platforms.

While the internet once promised connection, it now poses a deeper dilemma: In becoming archivists of our own lives, are we setting the stage for a kind of digital purgatory?

AI and the Reanimation of the Dead

Beyond passive data, artificial intelligence introduces a new twist: digital resurrection. In 2021, a South Korean television show stunned viewers when it used virtual reality to reunite a grieving mother with a digital recreation of her deceased daughter. Wearing a VR headset, the mother interacted with a computer-generated version of the child, complete with voice and mannerisms. The scene was emotionally powerful and ethically thorny.

More recently, apps like HereAfter AI and Replika have taken the concept mainstream. HereAfter allows users to record life stories through structured prompts. After death, their loved ones can interact with an AI-powered “memory bot” that shares those stories in the deceased’s voice. Meanwhile, some tech-savvy mourners are taking matters into their own hands. One widely-reported case involved a man training a chatbot on his late fiancé’s text messages. He described the result as “comforting,” though at times unsettling.

Such tools offer an illusion of presence. But they also raise deep concerns: do these simulations distort the truth of who someone was? Can a programmed personality truly reflect a person’s values and complexity? And what happens if the bot begins to say things the real person never would?

Ethical Ownership of the Digital Dead

When someone dies, we know what to do with their house, their finances, even their body. But who owns their digital legacy?

Tech companies are still playing catch-up. Most platforms require proof of death and legal authority before allowing access to a deceased person’s account. But this assumes the deceased had a clear digital will – a rarity. In the absence of guidance, families may find themselves locked out of important memories, or conversely, managing accounts they never wanted to inherit.

This vacuum opens the door to misuse. Deepfake AI-generated images, audio, or video can be created without consent. A well-meaning child might generate a voice model of their parents to feel connected. A less-scrupulous actor might exploit someone’s likeness for political or commercial gain. In both cases, the dead have no say.

From a humanist perspective, autonomy and consent are foundational values. If someone did not explicitly agree to be digitally reanimated, using their data posthumously becomes ethically fraught. Honoring a person’s legacy should not mean puppeteering their persona.

Grieving in the Age of the Infinite Scroll

For centuries, grief has involved letting go. Mourning rituals help us accept loss, grapple with pain, and find new meaning. But how do we grieve when reminders of the dead pop up daily in our feeds? When a deceased friend’s Spotify playlist auto-plays? When old text threads stay pinned on our phones?

Digital ghosts complicate the grieving process. Some find comfort in the continued presence; others feel haunted. The ever-presence of the dead can hinder closure, especially when algorithms offer reminders on birthdays, anniversaries, or “memories” from years past.

A 2022 study from the University of Toronto found that people who engage with digital mementos of deceased loved ones report mixed emotional outcomes; some found healing in the interaction, while others experienced prolonged sadness or confusion. The technology, it seems, amplifies whatever emotion is already present.

This introduces a new challenge: developing secular grieving rituals that account for our digital entanglements. We need humanist approaches that respect the dead’s autonomy, support the mourners’ well-being, and make space for truth over illusion.

Designing Humanist Memorials

Despite these challenges, digital tools also present opportunities. A thoughtful, ethically-designed digital memorial can be a powerful way to celebrate a life. It can make stories more accessible to future generations, deepen intergenerational connection, and democratize legacy beyond physical monuments.

Humanists are well positioned to lead in designing these new forms of remembrance. We can advocate for tools that center consent, avoid exploitation, and preserve the nuance of a person’s life. This might look like:

• Encouraging people to write “digital wills” that clearly outline how they want their data handled after death.
• Supporting open-source memorial platforms that aren’t monetized or manipulated by algorithms.
• Creating community rituals that incorporate digital remembrance in grounding, human ways such as curated storytelling events or online memory circles.

By bringing intention to these practices, we reclaim agency over how we are remembered.

Beyond the Binary of Gone or Alive

Perhaps the biggest challenge and opportunity of the digital afterlife is that it forces us to rethink old binaries – gone or present. Alive or dead. Remembered or forgotten.

In reality, memory has always been messy. Oral histories, diaries, photo albums are all imperfect attempts to freeze the unfreezable. The difference now is scale. Technology allows us to preserve more, more vividly, for longer. But more does not always mean better.

What makes a legacy meaningful isn’t its size, but its truth. As secular people, we can honor that truth by embracing complexity, resisting the temptation to sanitize or simulate, and focusing on the values that defined a life, not just the data it produced.

The Psychology of Clinging to Code

Why do we hold on to digital traces of the dead? For some, it’s simple: grief resists finality. When someone we love dies, especially unexpectedly, we often grasp for anything that preserves connection – a voicemail, a text thread, a social media post. Psychologists have long recognized that mourning isn’t just about detachment; it’s also about continuing bonds. Digital artifacts make those bonds tangible, perhaps too much so.

Digital communication can foster an illusion of presence. A loved one’s message history may feel like an invitation to respond. Archived voicemails can be replayed as if the person is merely away. This can provide comfort, but it also complicates healing. When grief collides with technology, the process of saying goodbye can become suspended. Instead of resolution, mourners may find themselves stuck in a cycle of artificial interaction hovering between reality and memory.

Therapists now report cases where clients struggle with anxiety or guilt around deleting texts or removing digital items. “If I delete this message, am I erasing them?” one grieving partner asked. These dilemmas underscore the emotional power of digital remnants and the need for tools that support grieving rather than confuse it.

Grief, Consent, and Commodification

One of the most pressing concerns in the digital afterlife is the role of profit. While some tools aim to preserve legacies with integrity, others see death as a new frontier for monetization. Companies offer subscription-based memory services, AI chatbots with “premium emotional intelligence,” and “eternal storage” plans. But what happens when remembrance becomes a product?

Humanists have long advocated against the commodification of grief, whether through overpriced funerals or exploitative spiritual services. The digital afterlife, for all its potential, risks repeating those same patterns. The idea of “talking” to the dead via chatbot can be seductive for the bereaved, but if a corporation holds the keys to that experience, the line between solace and manipulation grows thin.

Moreover, consent remains an enormous gray area. Many deceased individuals never imagined a future where their voice could be synthesized or their image animated. Yet terms of service often grant platforms the right to use user data indefinitely. This creates the potential for digital resurrection without ethical grounding. Just because we can resurrect someone’s voice or likeness doesn’t mean we should.

Humanists can play a key role in pushing for safeguards, clear ethical guidelines, opt-in systems, and user education about posthumous digital rights. These efforts can help prevent exploitation while preserving the dignity of those who have passed.

Building a Humanist Digital Culture

In envisioning a better path forward, we might ask: What would a secular, human-centered approach to digital memory look like?

First, it would emphasize truth over illusion. Rather than trying to “recreate” a person, it would aim to preserve their values, stories, and impact with honesty. A humanist digital memorial might include testimonials from friends, a curated archive of writings or photos, or even a timeline of contributions to community or activism rooted not in fantasy, but in legacy.

Second, it would be inclusive and accessible. Not everyone has the resources or digital literacy to preserve their memory online. Just as public memorials make space for collective grieving, digital spaces should avoid reinforcing inequalities of class, race, and access.

Finally, it would embrace finality as part of the human experience. The goal shouldn’t be to keep people “alive” digitally forever, but to honor them meaningfully and then let go. In doing so, we affirm a core humanist truth: that what gives life meaning is not its endlessness, but its impermanence.

Embracing Finality with Compassion

In the Humanist, we often celebrate how facing mortality can deepen our appreciation of life. The rise of digital ghosts doesn’t have to change that. But it does ask us to be more thoughtful about how we remember, who gets to remember, and what remembering really means.

We can build a future where the dead are honored, not commodified; remembered, not reanimated; celebrated, not simulated. That starts with human-centered ethics: empathy, consent, truth, and care.

In the end, death remains a full stop. But memory? Memory is a story and we have the power to tell it well.