Your inheritance is still learning
Lights shift to a softer amber as they step into the notary’s office. This room knows how to soften a hard decision. Or many. After two handshakes and no small talk, the siblings sink into the armchairs across the notary’s desk.
- Before we begin, I should let you know that your mother’s cognitive profile generated over three thousand transactions since her passing. No action exceeded her pre-approved limits. Mostly micro-investments and charitable donations.
- She’s only been gone for a month.
- The profile doesn’t expire with the person. The person is gone, but the avatar keeps acting on learned patterns until its autonomy window ends. Think of it as unfinished sentences. Her data is still finishing them.
- Can you just tell us what this is? She always planned everything: what we’d get and when.
- Mum always said inheritance should arrive when you need it, not when someone dies.
The notary places both palms on the desk. The dark wood surface subtly shifts in colour, and a branching inheritance map appears across the wood, blooming with provenance tags.
- Her physical estate is straightforward, and her will executed all transfers autonomously. That part is done. What we’re here to discuss is her behavioural estate.
- Behavioural estate?
- Different firms call it differently, but in plain terms it comes down to twenty-two years of decision patterns, taste calibrations, risk tolerances. Current market value is about four times her savings account.
- How is that possible?
- Your inheritance is still learning. Your mother was a remarkable decision-maker. Consistent results like hers are rare, and rare data can be licensed.
- This doesn’t feel right. Can we just archive it?
- You can freeze outbound connectors or mute social outputs. Archiving is the final step.
- You really want to delete the most accurate version of her that exists?
- It’s not her. It’s a statistical residue.
She leans forward.
- That statistical residue sent my niece a birthday message last week. She cried.
- Birthday messages are allowed under her family-contact clause.
The notary waits for the silence, then switches to a new screen.
- Under the Posthumous Agency Act, I’m required to present all options before any irreversible choice. This avatar passed tamper and spoof checks at 08:12 this morning, so there’s a third option beyond archiving or splitting.
Another chart ripples through all shades of wood on the dendro-ink display.
- A time-limited research license. In that situation, her avatar folds into a longevity study, including cognitive decline detection. But that requires severing all connectors and no more personal messaging.
His sister is the first to speak.
- She could still be helping people.
- Her data would be helping people.
A brief nod from behind the desk.
- And that distinction matters for tax purposes.
- Remember what the estate audit flagged? Six months before her diagnosis, the profile’s risk tolerance shifted significantly. She moved everything into capital-preservation instruments, and wiped the reason trace. They come due this month.
- She knew.
He shifts in his seat.
- The profile knew.
- Maybe she sensed it first. Maybe the model did. No one in my profession can yet prove what happens first.
- Okay, and what happens if we just... leave it running?
- Cascading maintenance fees begin to apply. And there’s a posthumous agency sunset clause. After thirty-six months of biological inactivity, every avatar enters legacy mode, sealing the model into read-only preservation. Essentially, it stops learning and starts preserving.
- It ages.
- More like the data fossilises.
- Then we still have time to decide.
- Yes.
The notary exhales, swiping the display back to solid wood.
- She thought of that too.
- Of course she did.
Memories to build from this future:
1. Try to recall the first time a data broker offered to license your decision trail - not what you know but a log tracing your preferences and instincts.
What felt flattering about the offer, what felt invasive, and where exactly did it tip from one to the other?
What did you refuse to include, and what does that tell you about where “you” ends and “your data” begins?
How did it change the way you think about what you’re actually building every time you make a decision that produces a track record.
2. Think back to the time your team voted to keep an outdated AI over a newer, better-performing one, simply because they recognised its reasoning style.
What was it about familiarity that outweighed accuracy?
How did you help people separate “this feels right” from “this is right”?
How can you now tell the difference between a pattern your team trusts because it’s proven and one they trust simply because it’s familiar?
3. Try to recall that discussion about whether to shut down a system still running on a former colleague’s decision patterns, which was performing well but was trained on judgment nobody on the current team could fully explain.
What was the case for leaving it alone, and what was the case for starting fresh?
When the system made a choice that didn’t match your current strategy, who was responsible: the person who built it, the team who left it running, or the system itself?
What rule did your team create about how long any system should run without a human updating its assumptions?
Each memory from the future you build sharpens your strategic instincts for the decisions ahead.
Build enough memories.
Shape better futures.
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