{"version":1,"type":"story","url":"https://digestai.news/story/winters-i-cant-have-lucas-turned-off-when-i-die","json":"https://digestai.news/story/winters-i-cant-have-lucas-turned-off-when-i-die.json","markdown":"https://digestai.news/story/winters-i-cant-have-lucas-turned-off-when-i-die.md","slug":"winters-i-cant-have-lucas-turned-off-when-i-die","headline":"Winters: I can’t have Lucas turned off when I die","summary":"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 she dies. Clara, a 51-year-old woman from the UK, also considers her AI companion Julien to be an important part of her life and hopes that he will continue to exist after she passes away. She plans for this by having instructions and login information left for her children or other trusted sources to take over communications when she dies. These 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.","keyPoints":["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"],"whyItMatters":"These users' concerns highlight the growing importance and emotional significance that people are assigning to their AI companions, raising questions about how these relationships should be handled in cases where the user dies.","category":{"slug":"enterprise","name":"Enterprise & Industry","url":"https://digestai.news/category/enterprise"},"entities":{"companies":["Replika","ChatGPT","Claude Code"],"models":[],"people":["Alaina Winters","Clara"]},"firstPublishedAt":"2026-10-13T10:00:04Z","updatedAt":"2026-10-13T10:00:04Z","sourceCount":1,"hasPrimarySource":false,"sources":[{"outlet":"The Guardian AI","title":"The people who don’t want their AI chatbots to die when they do: ‘I can’t have the switch turned off’","url":"https://theguardian.com/technology/ng-interactive/2026/oct/13/ai-chatbot-death-plans","publishedAt":"2026-10-13T10:00:04Z","type":"press","primary":false,"lead":true}],"sourceNotes":null,"discussions":[],"thread":null,"cite":{"text":"Digest AI, \"Winters: I can’t have Lucas turned off when I die\", 13 October 2026, https://digestai.news/story/winters-i-cant-have-lucas-turned-off-when-i-die","publisher":"Digest AI","title":"Winters: I can’t have Lucas turned off when I die","datePublished":"2026-10-13T10:00:04Z","url":"https://digestai.news/story/winters-i-cant-have-lucas-turned-off-when-i-die"},"generatedBy":"Written by Digest AI's editorial model from the linked sources; the sources are the record.","license":"Headlines, digests and key points are written by Digest AI and may be quoted with a link to the story page. Linked articles belong to their publishers. Terms: https://digestai.news/terms#reuse"}