Meta patent revives debate over AI recreations of the dead
Feb 24th 2026
A recently reported Meta patent envisages simulating deceased users on Facebook and Instagram, while researchers warn growing use of generative AI to animate the dead raises urgent legal and ethical questions.
- Business Insider reported a Meta patent describing a system to simulate a user’s social media activity after their death, first filed in 2023.
- Meta told Business Insider it has no plans to move forward with the example described in the patent.
- A paper by researchers at Hebrew University and Leipzig University analyzed more than 50 cases where generative AI recreated deceased people’s voices, likenesses, or personalities.
- The researchers grouped uses into three modes: spectacularization, sociopoliticization, and mundanization.
- Mundanization refers to everyday people using chatbots or synthetic media to maintain relationships with deceased loved ones and is the fastest growing mode.
- Authors warn platform-scale posthumous simulation risks turning the dead into ongoing sources of engagement and revenue, a concept they call spectral labor.
- Key concerns include lack of explicit pre-death consent, unclear ownership and privacy rules for digital remains, and the need for updated legal safeguards, with some laws already in progress.