[ExI] AI bots after user death

[Jason Resch]

On Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 4:56 AM BillK via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> Brent said -
> "I'm working to build a personal assistant bot which, if I should die,
> will take over where I left off.
> Its primary goal will be to continue my work, and seek to become me."
> --------------------
>
> But Meta (Microsoft) has just been granted a patent for simulating a
> user when the user is absent from the social networking system, or
> dead.
>

It's happening already. Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert died last
month. Before his death, he granted permission for anyone to use his many
books and videos as training materials to create a digital AI clone of
himself after he was gone. This channel appeared a few weeks ago, and is
carrying out that wish:

https://x.com/AIScottAdams

It's created a bit of a controversy as the people running his estate don't
want this to happen and are trying to reassert that they retain full rights
to his works and don't want anyone to be able to create a digital clone of
Adams.

I would advise anyone who wants this for themselves in the future to not
only have it in writing, and signed, but to have a lawyer prepare it in a
way that would a good such a conflict. Adams, on the other hand, only made
verbal statements during his livestreams, hence the disagreements over his
last wishes.

His estate is threatening lawyers, so this could be an test case.

Does this mean that Brent (and anyone else doing this) must get a
> license from Meta first?
>

Patents define specific methods. If alternate methods are used they could
yield the same effect and not infringe on the patent.

Further, if anyone can demonstrate prior art (e.g. a sci-fi book, a blog
post, a research article) publicly describing the idea which predates the
filing time of the patent, then the parent can be challenged on those
grounds.

This is work that patent attorneys and the patent office does (a prior art
search) prior to granting a patent, so presumably Meta has defined a
specific way of doing it that had not been described before. This means
that other ways of doing it, described prior to Meta's patent, are still
open for anyone to implement.

(Although Meta said they have no plans to do this yet. They just
> wanted to patent the idea).
> BillK
>
> <
> https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-granted-patent-for-ai-llm-bot-dead-paused-accounts-2026-2
> >
> Quote:
> Death isn't the end: Meta patented an AI that lets you keep posting
> from beyond the grave
> By Sydney Bradley   Feb 11, 2026
> To fill that void, Meta would essentially create a digital clone of
> your social media presence, training a model on "user-specific" data —
> including historical platform activity, such as comments, likes, or
> content — to understand how you would (or rather, did) behave.
>

There was a black mirror episode about this:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2290780/

Spoilers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_Right_Back

Jason
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