Attitudes Toward Digital Immortality and Related Factors Among Older Adults: An Exploratory Study From a Developmental Perspective

Recent advances in artificial intelligence-based resurrection technologies may impact our perspectives on life and death. However, empirical research on this subject is currently limited. Therefore, we investigated attitudes toward digital immortality and their association with psychosocial developmental features, such as ego-integrity and gerotranscendence, among Japanese older adults. A total of 296 older Japanese adults completed a questionnaire. Results revealed that only 8% of the participants wished to be virtually resurrected after death. We also confirmed the stable factor structure of attitudes toward digital immortality and its significant correlation with death attitudes. Finally, we found that the desire for digital immortality was not only negatively correlated with ego-integrity, awareness of <i>arigatasa</i>, and positive attitudes toward being alone but also positively associated with religious attitudes and basic affirmations. The desire for digital immortality was relatively low among older Japanese adults and was indeed related to psychosocial developmental features of ego-integrity and gerotranscendence.