At the Gates of Digital Hades: Negotiating Death, Grief and AI-Mediated Presence in Contemporary Culture
(2026) MKVM13 20261Media and Communication Studies
Department of Communication and Media
- Abstract
- This thesis investigates how people who have experienced loss, reason about grief, death and AI-mediated posthumous communication in contemporary digital culture, using the episode Be Right Back from the well-known TV series Black Mirror as a shared point of reference. Given the rapid development and everyday normalisation of generative AI, griefbots and other forms of simulated companionship, the episode’s once speculative scenario has become increasingly plausible. This study asks how people reconstruct the meanings of grief and death through the possibility of griefbots, how these technologies are imagined as both desirable and troubling in the context of loss, and where audiences locate the limits of their technological promise.... (More)
- This thesis investigates how people who have experienced loss, reason about grief, death and AI-mediated posthumous communication in contemporary digital culture, using the episode Be Right Back from the well-known TV series Black Mirror as a shared point of reference. Given the rapid development and everyday normalisation of generative AI, griefbots and other forms of simulated companionship, the episode’s once speculative scenario has become increasingly plausible. This study asks how people reconstruct the meanings of grief and death through the possibility of griefbots, how these technologies are imagined as both desirable and troubling in the context of loss, and where audiences locate the limits of their technological promise. Drawing on literature on death in modernity, social media memorialization, continuing bonds, technological magic, the uncanny and the “absolute fake”, this thesis situates griefbots within broader transformations of mediated mourning and posthumous presence. Methodologically, the study is based on twelve semi-structured interviews with people who have watched Be Right Back and have experienced loss, supported by qualitative content analysis of Reddit discussions from r/blackmirror. The findings show that griefbots are not interpreted simply as good or bad technologies, but as ambivalent cultural objects that expose tensions around absence, memory, intimacy and human finitude. Participants often understand death as natural and final, while also imagining situations in which AI-mediated interaction could soften the pain of loss. This study further finds that griefbots become desirable because they promise response, temporary comfort and simulated sociality, but they are rejected when they appear to replace the deceased, intensify isolation, commodify grief or violate ethical boundaries of consent and dignity. Ultimately, this thesis contributes to research on mediated death and AI by showing that griefbots reveal not only changing practices of mourning, but also broader transformations in how intimacy, presence and social connection are imagined through technology. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9228900
- author
- Arberi, Evgjeni LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- MKVM13 20261
- year
- 2026
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- griefbots, digital death, Be Right Back, artificial intelligence, mediated mourning, posthumous communication, Black Mirror.
- language
- English
- id
- 9228900
- date added to LUP
- 2026-06-03 11:02:01
- date last changed
- 2026-06-24 13:38:05
@misc{9228900,
abstract = {{This thesis investigates how people who have experienced loss, reason about grief, death and AI-mediated posthumous communication in contemporary digital culture, using the episode Be Right Back from the well-known TV series Black Mirror as a shared point of reference. Given the rapid development and everyday normalisation of generative AI, griefbots and other forms of simulated companionship, the episode’s once speculative scenario has become increasingly plausible. This study asks how people reconstruct the meanings of grief and death through the possibility of griefbots, how these technologies are imagined as both desirable and troubling in the context of loss, and where audiences locate the limits of their technological promise. Drawing on literature on death in modernity, social media memorialization, continuing bonds, technological magic, the uncanny and the “absolute fake”, this thesis situates griefbots within broader transformations of mediated mourning and posthumous presence. Methodologically, the study is based on twelve semi-structured interviews with people who have watched Be Right Back and have experienced loss, supported by qualitative content analysis of Reddit discussions from r/blackmirror. The findings show that griefbots are not interpreted simply as good or bad technologies, but as ambivalent cultural objects that expose tensions around absence, memory, intimacy and human finitude. Participants often understand death as natural and final, while also imagining situations in which AI-mediated interaction could soften the pain of loss. This study further finds that griefbots become desirable because they promise response, temporary comfort and simulated sociality, but they are rejected when they appear to replace the deceased, intensify isolation, commodify grief or violate ethical boundaries of consent and dignity. Ultimately, this thesis contributes to research on mediated death and AI by showing that griefbots reveal not only changing practices of mourning, but also broader transformations in how intimacy, presence and social connection are imagined through technology.}},
author = {{Arberi, Evgjeni}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{At the Gates of Digital Hades: Negotiating Death, Grief and AI-Mediated Presence in Contemporary Culture}},
year = {{2026}},
}