Afterglow: A Place-Based Memorial Ecology for AI-Mediated Pet Bereavement

Abstract

Pet bereavement often receives little social recognition. Generative AI can give a continuing bond a responsive voice, but a comforting reply may also claim authority to forgive or request attention. We investigate how a memorial can support connection without turning remembrance into obligation. Through Research through Design, we developed Afterglow, a mobile world connecting private remembrance, human witnessing, and symbolic Pet messages. A formative survey (N=57) informed the initial design, followed by six online roundtable walkthroughs with 20 unique participants across two prototype iterations. Our interpretive analysis develops tensions between returnable connection and emotional obligation, recognizable likeness and ontological clarity, and protective intervention and surveillant authority. We contribute Legible Restraint, a cross-layer requirement that limits on relational authority survive changes in speaker, generation context, trigger logic, data use, and participation. Its temporal consequence, Designing for Goodbye, keeps remembrance available without making continued use a condition of care.