After Life Link: What If You Never Had to Say Goodbye?

Speculative Design videos are a useful tool for asking provocative questions like “What could possibly go wrong?” and provide a starting point for discussions of future technologies. This short paper presents and discusses a speculative video showcasing a “thanabot” - a technological solution for maintaining a digital presence of a person’s identity beyond their (biological) death. The video shows a small human-like companion robot which gets plugged in with different identities of people who were emotionally close to an older adult, now living alone. While brainstorming the scenario, the filming process, and creating the video, we critically engaged and reflected on creating an afterlife technology and its social and emotional impacts, potential, and challenges. We wanted to provide a starting point for critical discussions and reflections on future companion robots and what kinds of human-agent relationships we (do not) want to strive for.