Digital Grief and Posthumous Identity: Global Regulatory Gaps in the Era of Griefbots, Posthumous Avatars, and Grief-Oriented Generative AI

English version of the Spanish-language original deposited on SSRN (DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.6443900). Both versions correspond to the second revised edition. The digital grief industry, comprising griefbots, posthumous voice and image avatars, and virtual reality environments for mourning, has entered the global market at a pace that far outstrips the responsiveness of existing regulatory frameworks. This white paper examines the regulatory treatment of grief-oriented generative artificial intelligence across five jurisdictions (the European Union, the United States, China, South Korea and Australia), current as of March 2026. It finds that no national or international framework in force governs these systems in a comprehensive and specific manner. The EU AI Act makes no reference to posthumous identity and would classify griefbots as limited-risk systems subject only to transparency obligations, while the General Data Protection Regulation expressly excludes deceased persons from its scope and delegates the question to Member States, producing a fragmented European landscape. The United States lacks federal regulation. China provides the most developed consent requirements for posthumous likeness, although motivated by content control rather than by protection of the bereaved. Spain offers the principal statutory precedent for a digital will, but one directed at access to accounts rather than at the generative reconstruction of identity. The paper identifies four structural gaps, posthumous consent, the absence of AI-specific digital wills, posthumous dignity, and the allocation of liability, and sets out recommendations for national legislators, international bodies, and industry.