“This could also invoke issues with contract, property and intellectual property rights, and right of publicity as well if AI replicas (image, voice, text, etc.) are being used without authorization,” Sheehan said.
And there are likely more protections for celebrities than for everyday people, Sheehan suggested.
“As far as I know, there is no law” preventing unauthorized non-commercial digital replicas, Sheehan said.
Widely adopted by states, the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act—which governs who gets access to online accounts of the deceased, like social media or email accounts—could be helpful but isn’t a perfect remedy.
That law doesn’t directly “cover someone’s AI ghost bot, though it may cover some of the digital material some may seek to use to create a ghost bot,” Sheehan said.
“Absent any law” blocking non-commercial digital replicas, Sheehan expects that people’s requests for “no AI resurrections” will likely “be dealt with in the courts and governed by the terms of one’s estate plan, if it is addressed within the estate plan.”
Those potential fights seemingly could get hairy, as “it may be some time before we get any kind of clarity or uniform law surrounding this,” Sheehan suggested.
In the future, Sheehan said, requests prohibiting digital replicas may eventually become “boilerplate language in almost every will, trust, and power of attorney,” just as instructions on digital assets are now.
As “all things AI become more and more a part of our lives,” Sheehan said, “some aspects of AI and its components may also be woven throughout the estate plan regularly.”
“But we definitely aren’t there yet,” she said. “I have had zero clients ask about this.”
Requests for “no AI resurrections” will likely be ignored
Whether loved ones would—or even should—respect requests blocking digital replicas appears to be debatable. But at least one person who built a grief bot wished he’d done more to get his dad’s permission before moving forward with his own creation.