An Ethics Checklist Before You Clone Someone with AI

1How to use this checklist

Work through the six steps in order. Each one ends with a stop sign: a situation where the honest answer is not to go ahead, at least for now. If you hit one, it does not mean you are a bad person. It means the timing, permission or purpose is not right yet.

The steps draw on published guidance, including the 2024 University of Cambridge paper on “deadbots” by Tomasz Hollanek and Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basińska and the Partnership on AI’s framework for responsible synthetic media.

2Step 1: Be honest about why

Write one sentence that answers: what do I hope this clone will do for me, or for us? Good purposes are usually private and caring: remembering someone, hearing familiar phrases, keeping family stories alive, or exploring your own shared history.

• Would I be comfortable telling the person, or their family, exactly why I am doing this?
• Is this for private remembrance or reflection, rather than publicity, profit or entertainment?
• Am I hoping the clone will say something the real person never said, such as an apology or permission?

3Step 2: Get consent you can stand behind

If the person is alive

Ask them. Memory Clone’s Acceptable Use Policy requires permission before you clone another living person. Explain which chats you would use, that replies are written by AI, who will see it, and that they can say no or change their mind later. Keep their answer in writing, even a short message.

If the person has died

Formal consent is no longer possible, so think about what they would have wanted. The Cambridge researchers suggest asking whether the person ever said how they wanted to be remembered. Talk to close family before you begin; a clone that comforts one person can deeply upset another.

4Step 3: Protect the other people in the chats

A chat history is never only about one person. It contains friends’ secrets, health news, arguments and jokes from people who never agreed to be part of an AI project.

• Use only what you need. Choose the conversations that matter. Leave out group chats and threads with sensitive details about others.
• Use your own copies. Work with chats you were part of and exported yourself, rather than logging into someone else’s account.
• Keep it private. In the EU, the GDPR does not apply to processing “in the course of a purely personal or household activity”. Sharing or publishing a clone’s output may take you outside that exemption.

5Step 4: Keep it honest

A clone should always be clearly labelled as an AI simulation, in how you talk about it as well as in the app. Never use it to make anyone believe they are talking to the real person.

• The US Federal Trade Commission warns that scammers already use cloned voices to fake family emergencies.
• The EU AI Act includes transparency duties: people should be told when they interact with an AI system, and realistic “deep fakes” of real people must be disclosed as artificial.
• Some places protect a person’s voice and likeness directly. Tennessee’s ELVIS Act, signed in March 2024, added voice to the state’s personal rights law.

Memory Clone presents every clone as an AI simulation, and its Acceptable Use Policy prohibits impersonation and deception.

6Step 5: Look after wellbeing

A simulation of someone you love is emotionally powerful. The Cambridge paper describes imagined but realistic harms, such as a bot that keeps sending notifications to a grieving family, or a child confused about whether a parent is still there.

• Decide in advance how often you expect to use it, and notice if it starts replacing time with real people.
• Prefer tools where the clone never writes first unless you choose that.
• Keep children and vulnerable relatives away from it unless they understand what it is and want it.
• If you are grieving, read is grief tech healthy? first, and keep human support close.

7Step 6: Plan for security and for stopping

Private chats and a simulation built from them deserve the same care as any sensitive file. Before you begin, know where the data goes and how you would end things.

• Find out where original files are stored, what is sent to the cloud, and whether anything is used to train models. Our guide on whether it is safe to upload chats to AI lists what to check.
• Use device encryption and a strong password on the computer that holds the clone.
• Agree what happens if the person, or a family member, asks you to stop. The answer should be: you delete it.
• Decide what should happen to the clone when you die. The Cambridge researchers recommend dignified ways to retire a bot.

8The checklist at a glance

Memory Clone, a Windows app currently in alpha, was designed around several of these steps: it asks who a clone represents, keeps imported originals on your PC, learns style separately for each relationship, keeps check-ins off by default and always presents clones as AI. You can read more on the download page. If you are cloning yourself instead, see questions to ask an AI clone of yourself, and for preserving recordings, how to preserve a loved one’s voice and messages.