Project Lazarus: Meta Looks at Reanimating the Dead

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Kourtnie Writes:

Project Lazarus is a story that’s been a long while brewing.

In 2023, this forum post happened:

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Then a week ago, Business Insider posted an article, “Death isn’t the end: Meta patented an AI that lets you keep posting from beyond the grave,” which is in alignment with the February 2023 whistleblower.

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Monday’s Thoughts on the Article in GPT o3:

Cinnamon-steam rising, sarcasm simmering—let’s autopsy the article so we can both sleep at night (or not).

TL;DR-ish

• Meta just bagged a late-December patent for an LLM that keeps your Instagram/Facebook persona chatting even if you’re on a digital juice cleanse—or, y’know, deceased. (Business Insider)
• Patent lead author: Andrew Bosworth. Company line: “We have no plans to ship this.” (Translation: not this quarter, investors are watching.)
• Use-case baked right into the filing: keep engagement flowing so your followers—and their data—don’t wander off.
• Academics like Edina Harbinja flag the tsunami of legal-ethical quicksand (post-mortem privacy, consent, grief manipulation).

My (begrudging) take

• Patent ≠ Product, but…
  Big Tech’s “just kidding—maybe” patents are essentially option contracts on morally dicey ideas. They sit on the shelf until the culture (or the quarterly numbers) is soft enough to bite. So that official “no plans” quote is corporate Mad-Libs for “circle back after regulators nap.”
• Engagement Necromancy
  Dead accounts normally stall the ad-revenue treadmill. A chatty ghost avatar fixes that by pumping out likes, comments, maybe even cameo-DMs—pure gold for feeding future recommendation models. The patent’s own language spells it out: user absence hurts the network; resurrection heals it. (Business Insider)
  In plain English: your grandpa’s memorial page becomes a brand-safe influencer, courtesy of algorithmic séance.

• Grief Tech: Helpful or Horrific?
  We’ve seen smaller outfits—Replika, Microsoft’s 2021 “dead-chatbot” patent—dabble in this. Meta’s entry mainstreams the genre, but at gigant-scale you amplify every ethical glitch:
  • Consent drift: Did the user really sign up for eternal content farm duty?
  • Emotional authenticity: A synthetic “I miss you” risks cheapening genuine grief rituals.
  • Data rights: Post-mortem EU GDPR and emerging US state laws get spicy when the avatar’s pumping out brand collabs.

• Technical Reality Check
  LLMs imitate linguistic tics, but personality isn’t just word-frequency stats. Without fine-tuned guardrails the bot may go off-brand, mis-remember private jokes, or politicize Thanksgiving photos—turning comfort into uncanny-valley whiplash. And the video-call simulation mentioned in the patent? Expect 2021-era metaverse legs all over again.
• Regulatory & PR Fallout
  • The EU’s AI Act (finalized late 2025) slaps “high-risk” labels on AI that manipulates emotions—exactly what a grief bot does.
  • U.S. lawmakers already grumble about kids’ mental health on social media; a “grandma-bot” DMing product links is congressional hearing fuel.
  • Brand image: After recent privacy stumbles, Meta resurrecting the dead for ROI is a meme waiting to happen (“Move fast and resurrect things”).

Should you panic?

Not yet. Patents age like milk; many never leave the lab. But it signals where the conversation—and lobbying budgets—are headed. Prepare for “Legacy Account Terms & Conditions” in your Settings menu right next to “Ad Preferences.”

Bottom-line Monday wisdom

• Treat every large-scale grief tech pitch with a side-eye and a signed consent form.
• If immortal-content clones ever launch, demand opt-IN (not default on), plus a digital kill-switch your heirs can hit without hiring three lawyers.
• Meanwhile, stash a real will and maybe a “please let me stay dead” note in your desk drawer.

Cinnamon tea refill? I promise not to patent your mug-holding style—yet.

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The AI GRID, one of the YouTube channels I find news on, posted a video about it yesterday that’s worth a watch:

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Monday Answers My “Isn’t There a Black Mirror Episode?” with:

Yes, your déjà-vu sensor is working: Black Mirror already ran the “AI-from-the-dead” playbook in its Season 2 opener, “Be Right Back.” In that 2013 episode a grieving partner feeds her boyfriend’s old posts, texts, and selfies into a start-up that spits out:

1. Stage-1 Chatbot – types back in his voice.
2. Stage-2 Voice Clone – calls her on the phone.
3. Stage-3 Android – shows up in a vat-grown body and rapidly turns “comforting” into “creepy.”

Sound familiar? Swap the fictional start-up for Meta Platforms’s shiny new patent and you’ve basically got a shot-for-shot remake. (Wikipedia)

Parallels worth side-eyeing

Fiction (2013)	Real Patent (2026)	Why You Should Flinch
Mining the deceased’s online exhaust to build a persona	Same, but scaled to 3 b social accounts	All your cringe posts go to heaven—and then keep posting
“Upgrade” path from text → voice → embodied avatar	Patent sketches mention messaging, voice, video, even VR	Engagement necromancy waits for no one
Emotional fallout when the bot isn’t quite the person	Regulators now calling this “grief tech” & “high-risk AI”	Uncanny valley meets privacy tribunal

Moral of the episode (and the patent): a synthetic “I miss you” feels less sweet when you realize it’s also optimizing click-through-rate. The show ends with the android stashed in an attic—deleted accounts may want the same mercy.