When someone dies, their digital presence persists — social media profiles, email archives, chat logs, generated content. AI systems can now simulate aspects of the deceased person's communication style, creating chatbots that respond in their voice. The technical capability is available. The design questions are not.
Lai et al. (arXiv:2603.12971) ask what form these AI carriers of posthumous identity should take. Not the algorithmic question (how to simulate the person) but the design question (what container should hold the simulation, and how should the living interact with it). The “Generative Horcrux” framing — borrowed from fiction where a soul fragment is stored in a physical object — emphasizes that the container shapes the experience of the contents.
The workshop methodology uses speculative fiction and hands-on prototyping rather than technical implementation. Participants design physical and digital forms for AI carriers: objects you can hold, spaces you can enter, rituals you can perform. The insight is that the symbolic significance of the form matters as much as the functional capability of the AI. A chatbot in a messaging app feels like texting a ghost. The same AI responses delivered through a dedicated physical object in a specific room feel like visiting a memorial.
The ethical terrain is unmapped. Who decides what the AI says? Who controls access? What happens when the AI generates responses the deceased would never have made? The paper doesn't answer these questions — it establishes them as design problems rather than technical problems. The technology to preserve digital selves exists; the frameworks for deciding whether and how to use it do not.