Digital Immortality: Conceptual Foundations and Technological Approaches

Digital immortality is commonly defined as the extension of a person’s digital presence beyondphysical death. Savin-Baden and colleagues define it as “the continuation of an active or passivedigital presence after death” (Savin-Baden et al., 2017). Academic research frames thisconcept through two modes: a passive (one-way) digital legacy (e.g. memorialized profiles) andan active (two-way) digital persona that can interact posthumously. This paper reviewspeer-reviewed and scholarly sources on how digital immortality is pursued. Key approachesinclude preserving and curating one’s personal data, modeling personality via artificialintelligence, creating interactive avatars or chatbots, and advanced ideas like mind uploading anddigital twins. Grounded in recent expert literature, we outline both the conceptual definitions andthe technical mechanisms that researchers have developed or proposed to achieve digitalimmortality, without engaging in unfounded speculation.