When Death Meets AI: Engaging in New Death Ways in Portugal

This paper explores death practices and how societies have “placed the dead”. It examines the implications of analyzing death in the digital age, using Portugal as a case study. In a country where death has long been tied to Catholic traditions, how do people respond to rising cremation rates, onlin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Religions (Basel, Switzerland ) Vol. 16; no. 4; p. 488
Main Author: Saraiva, Clara
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.04.2025
Subjects:
20th century
Artificial intelligence
Case studies
Chatbots
Computers and civilization
Computers and society
digital death
ghosts
grief
metapersons
Mortuary practice
online memorials
Physics
Pornography & obscenity
spirits
Technology application
Transhumanism
Portugal
United States
United Kingdom
Guinea Bissau
ISSN:2077-1444, 2077-1444
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:This paper explores death practices and how societies have “placed the dead”. It examines the implications of analyzing death in the digital age, using Portugal as a case study. In a country where death has long been tied to Catholic traditions, how do people respond to rising cremation rates, online memorials, and social media groups dedicated to the deceased? Are they open to “digital death ways”, such as AI-driven chatbots, holograms, and platforms that preserve messages beyond one’s lifetime? Following Recuber’s call for empirical studies on how, when, and by whom technology is used to communicate with the dead, this research serves as a preliminary step toward a broader project on Portuguese digital death practices. It focuses on two key themes: changes in the treatment of physical remains due to evolving perceptions of the deceased and the relationships between the living and the dead (also in the new form of digitally resurrected personas).
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ISSN:2077-1444
2077-1444
DOI:10.3390/rel16040488