The beauty of impermanence

I had a lovely birthday. In-laws took us out to a very nice steak dinner the day before. The day of, Reed, Locke, and I had Italian Hot Beef and wandered the Field Museum before heading home on a flight that departed 15 minutes before a big storm, and had to fly and extra hour to go south around the thunder heads. The day after, we rode bikes with kiddos from Dublin to San Ramon, had fabulous ice cream and played in a joyful park before riding back home. 12 miles at 4 years old feels big to me. In the early evening, some friends and I gathered to talk about the digital and death overlap. I’ll tell you more about that in a moment. The day after that, I rode a metric century with some friends, talking about relationships, death, time, and the economics of attention.

My birthday about digital estate planning ended up being a small but very tight group of people. I was overjoyed to have this conversation with them. We talked a bit about our own attitudes on death, and what we had and hadn’t done to be kind to those around us when we die.

I view death as a community act. It is the final step of ceasing to be an individual, and all that remains is the collective experience of you.

This is complicated by technology lending itself so thoroughly to the hyper-individualization that we as Americans experience. Our entire tech stack feeds into that. As a security professional, I abhor the sharing of an account, and yet it comes so naturally to us to do. You should be able to see what I see. I should be able to share what I have and what I know with you.

But it isn’t about you as an individual to the tech companies. They continue to make use of your data and profile after you die. You are still monetizable. Because your data escheats to those companies, unlike your physical, intellectual, and monetary artifacts that go to next of kin or to the state if not claimed.

Megan and I have figured out some ways to pass on access and ownership of some of your digital assets (see more on Digital Assets Help), but something came up at this birthday party that I hadn’t considered before — using all I’ve published and said to people in chats etc to turn into an LLM model.

It’s perfectly natural to want to continue talking and benefitting from a deceased loved one by modeling them in your head and trying to have conversations with them. It will be incredibly tempting to offload some of that labor, and to externalize the uncertainty of if you’re getting it right or not, into an LLM.

Sit with that for a moment. Would you want to do it for your dearest human? How would you feel if someone did it to you?

I’ve edited my privacy statement (still needs to happen on the website example) to be clear about not wanting to be turned into an individualized or commercialized LLM. I don’t want to have any semblance of living forever. I like being impermanent. I like knowing my flaws die with me, and that whatever I’ve contributed to the collective continues or doesn’t based on how useful it is to that collective.

For my likeness and image, I’m ok with it being used for community art, action, and data activism. This also applies to AI. This explicitly excludes use for grieving and processing, and any commercial purposes. EG, fold me back into the collective, do not use what I’ve made to recreate me in any individualized way.

I do not seek the power of perpetual influence. I seek the resilience of fleeting engagements that change us for our short lives and influence how we hold each other. I seek the resilience of quiet, slow infrastructure of weekly dinners that change who I am to my core by seeping into my bones. I seek the self reflection of things left unsaid in relationships of all shapes, and how that changes how I interact with who is still with me now. Impermanence is beautiful, and it causes me to appreciate this moment and this moment and this moment more than any other thing I can think of. To be turned into an LLM would cheapen who I have been, and negatively impact the people I have worked so hard to uplift in my life through my love and time.

What do you think of this, and how will you be sure your wishes can be respected when you leave this mortal coil?