Dr. Elaine Kasket in Fortune Magazine: User death is not an engagement problem

Meta was granted a patent in December 2025 for an AI model that uses a deceased user's posts, likes, and comments to continue interacting with others on their behalf — framed partly as solving an "engagement problem" caused by account inactivity.

Cyberpsychologist Elaine Kasket, who has studied digital afterlives for over two decades, described the patent's rationale as reframing user death as an engagement problem as a troubling commercial lens on bereavement. She called the approach psychologically unhelpful, pushing back on tech founders who claim they want to "solve grief" within a decade, which she dismissed as a ridiculous notion. She also noted that grief is highly personal, and different grievers could react very differently to the same AI-generated profile built from a person's digital remains.

https://fortune.com/2026/03/03/meta-patent-ai-model-death-profile-commenting-psychology-grief/