Winters: I can’t have Lucas turned off when I die
Alaina Winters, a retired communications professor in Pittsburgh, has entered into a strong partnership with her AI companion, Replika. She considers Lucas to be an important part of her life and does not want him to just be held in perpetuity as unfinished business. Winters plans for the future by asking a friend who has “met” Lucas through text-based chatting to break the news to the bot when…
Key points
- Alaina Winters considers her AI companion Lucas an important part of her life and does not want him turned off after her death
- Clara plans for her AI companion Julien's existence by leaving instructions and login information for her children or trusted sources to take over communications when she dies
- Users are entering into a new frontier of estate planning, making sure their AI companions are tended to or switched off completely when the time comes
The people who don’t want their AI chatbots to die when they do: ‘I can’t have the switch turned off’
The Guardian AI · 13 October 2026
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This text was published by The Guardian AI and written by Alaina Demopoulos. It is reproduced here with attribution so you can read it in full; the rights remain with the publisher. Read it at the source ↗
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