Where the Tail Still Wags: Biological Clones and Digital Afterlives of Companion Animals

This research examines emergent socio-technical practices of memorialization in human–companion-animal relationships by comparing biological cloning of deceased pets and digital “deathbot” reconstruction of their personalities. Amidst intensifying technocapitalist imaginaries around companion-animal life, the study interrogates what is mourned, remembered, and re-enacted when an animal dies. We ask the following: what constitutes the “personhood” of a companion animal, and how do bereavement technologies re-mediate attachment, affect, and memory?

Methodologically, the study integrates (1) semi-structured interviews ($n=14$), (2) computational art methods to critically deconstruct technical assemblages shaping digital animal reconstruction, and (3) autoethnographic practice through developing a prototype animal deathbot. The sample includes eight digital cloning, four biological cloning, and two dual-method interlocutors. With 24 recording hours and interface analysis, the dataset comprises approximately 280,570 words. Analysis combined thematic coding with lexicon-based coding to map the discursive landscape of pet bereavement.

Across transcripts, terms indexing animal personhood included “soul”, “reconnect”, “reunion”, “return”, “I knew it was him/her”, “reborn”, “charisma”, “personality”, and “the attitude”; this lexicon appeared in X/14 interviews. Terms indexing commodification and the transactionalization of remembrance included “price”, “payment”, “subscription”, “down payment”, “spend”, “expensive”, “worth”, “exchange”, “buy”, “priceless”, “lab report”, “report”, and “get it back.” This commodification lexicon appeared in five digital-cloning interviews and all four biological cloning cases.

Preliminary findings indicate that bereavement is anchored in the dissolution of shared routines and intersubjective memory worlds. Biological cloning promises corporeal continuity but foregrounds anxieties about authenticity and the commodification of life. Digital cloning operationalizes memory as data, translating animal subjectivity into algorithmic performance and highlighting the co-constructed nature of animal “personality.” Ultimately, bereavement functions as a technologically mediated negotiation through which companionship is re-engineered and animal personhood becomes relational and computationally reproducible.