Roman Mazurenko was a Russian entrepreneur and friend of Eugenia Kuyda who died in 2015. After his death, he became one of the earliest examples of a real person whose digital persona was recreated using AI technology.
Following his passing, Kuyda gathered thousands of his text messages from friends and family to train an AI dialogue model. The resulting “Roman bot” could mimic his distinctive communication style and personality, creating a digital simulacrum that conversed in a way reminiscent of the real Roman.
This posthumous AI recreation became a significant case study in digital resurrection ethics and technology, demonstrating both the emotional comfort such simulations can provide to grieving loved ones and the unsettling implications of creating digital versions of deceased individuals without their explicit consent.
The project of preserving Roman’s digital personality eventually inspired Kuyda to co-found Replika, a widely-used AI companion app that offers personalized relationships with AI entities.
Connections
- Subject of AI resurrection by Eugenia Kuyda
- Inspiration for Replika
- Example of Digital Afterlife
- Case study in Digital Resurrection Ethics
- Featured in DeepResearch - Real-World AI Waifu Creations and Experiments