Background
What marks the true end of life? From mummies and altars to heavenly realms and modern cemeteries, humans have never ceased their imagination of afterlife. Today, with the advancement of AI, digital life forms—such as digital twins, AI agents, and self-evolving NPCs—are becoming ubiquitous in daily life. Through these technologies, digital life seems to offer the promise of immortality. However, the seemingly immaterial digital entities rely heavily on physical infrastructure—expanding data centers, relentless extraction of minerals, vast human labor, and immense energy consumption. How will the concept of life evolve with these increasingly lifelike digital beings? How can humans address the environmental impact of exponentially multiplying AI companions?
AI Environmental Impact
Although AI is often perceived as immaterial, its consumption of energy, water, and natural resources tells a different story. Each ChatGPT query, for instance, consumes five times the energy of a single Google search(AIAIC, 2024). AI is also incredibly water-intensive. GPT-3 consumed 700,000 liters of clean freshwater in Microsoft’s data centers(Li et al., 2023). Yet, the true scale of AI’s energy consumption remains a black box, as major companies refuse to disclose the carbon emission of training their models. However, the impact is visible—Google’s GHG emissions have surged by 48% since 2019, while companies like Microsoft have delayed their net-zero targets initially set for 2024(Bloomberg, 2024). The International Energy Agency estimates that energy demands from data centers could double by 2026, using as much energy as the entire country of Japan(IEA, 2024).
Concept
What marks the true end of life? When someone we love— family, friends, or pets—passes away, their life doesn’t truly end. We continue to hold so many memories and emotions of them. Memoria is a speculative device that redefines the “end of life” with technology and envisions a tangible, sustainable digital afterlife. It revives departed loved ones in its digital format powered by AI, extending life beyond biological limits. This portable device is made of biodegradable material based on human ashes and powered by the user’s body heat, allowing the living to connect with their late loved ones through touching, holding, caring, and communicating. Memoria upholds the sustainability promise by fully adopting digital life into the ecosystem. It continuously monitors digital life’s "vital signs," defined not by technical capability but by humanity, such as memory relevance, emotional attachment, and social activity. When a life—whether biological or digital—is neither remembered nor engaged with, its purpose fades away. By then, Memoria will trigger the End-of-life Protocol, systematically erasing all data and decomposing the physical device. In alignment with the law of energy conservation and environmental sustainability, this process ensures a seamless return to nothingness while honoring both life and the planet.
By focusing on digital life and death, this project seeks to spark a conversation on existence, emotional attachment, and environmental responsibility in an era of rapid AI advancements.
Memoria Net Zero
(01)
Design, Speculative
Designing Emerging Technologies Studio, UC Berkeley
2025
Digital Life Forms
The concept of digital life forms dates back to the early 1950s when researchers like Nils Aall Barricelli began exploring artificial life through self-replicating computer programs. In recent years, with the rise of Gen-AI and machine learning, AI companions are increasingly integrated into our daily lives, blurring the lines between digital and biological life. However, advanced algorithms don’t necessarily make them alive, do we perceive these digital life forms merely as tools, as automated digital "zombies," or as respectable beings within the ecosystem?
Tangible and Sustainable Technology
Memoria responds to the material realities of digital entities by minimizing resource consumption while maximizing impact. Designed with a respectful end-of-life system, it runs on body heat and integrates low-energy training.
Holding and caressing the things we love is inherently human, and so is the experience of interacting with Memoria. Simply holding it with love, one can charge it with body heat, and touching also sustains its “vital signs,” ensuring that love remains present and tangible. Memoria enables seamless conversations with departed loved ones anytime, anywhere, providing comfort and emotional support. Its built-in projector transforms any surface, headset, or even the retina into a display. Furthermore, Memoria features a respectful and sustainable “grave to cradle” life cycle design. Unlike biological life, which naturally returns to nothingness, digital entities are inherently immortal. However, the existence of a digital life should not be defined by technological limits, but by emotions, connections, and memories. Memoria uses human/animal ashes as its primary material and incorporates a self-destroying system to bring the open-ended digital life cycle to a close, minimizing the environmental impact.
Reflection
What marks the true end of life? It is neither biological decay nor technological limitation. Digital life extends life beyond physical limits, but it is not meant to be eternal. Instead, it redefines the boundaries of life by centering on the value of existence itself. While many current designs emphasize the “product life cycle,” digital life forms present a unique paradox—they are "life" without a life cycle. If we view them as more than just advanced algorithms or lifeless digital shells, they too should be integrated into the human life cycle, deserving respect, remembrance, and forgetting. A responsible approach to digital life must also recognize the environmental impact of seemingly immaterial technologies, ensuring a cyclical balance.
The environmental impact of hyped technologies often goes unnoticed until tangible consequences emerge. From endlessly drifting space junk to the ever-growing mountains of e-waste, these reminders push us to reconsider the illusion that digital life is weightless and immaterial. In reality, it is deeply material—reliant on vast resources with a significant environmental footprint. Also, it must be material and meaningful—because a life is not a tool, but something born from love and remembrance. Life does not truly end with biological decay or achieve immortality through advanced technology—it eventually ends with the fading of love and memory.