Unfortunately, death is a reality for all people, regardless of their religion, ethnicity, nationality or social class. Everyone, without exception, dies one day. Now a new practice is arousing great curiosity in eastern China.
There is a cemetery that uses AI (Artificial intelligence) to recreate avatars that look like dead people. A citizen named Seakoo Wu and his wife joined the novelty to miss their son and received a perfect replica of him.
According to local media, this is a fastgrowing trend and several Chinese companies claim to have developed thousands of digital copies of loved ones who are no longer among the living.
These companies claim that they only need 30 seconds of audiovisual footage of the deceased in question to carry out the procedure. According to some experts, this can provide comfort and relief, allowing families to cope with grief more easily.
A market that is promising
These digital avatars are nicknamed “ghost bots” and the industries specializing in their creation are expanding at great speed in Chinese territory. Businessman Zhanh Zewei, founder of one of these companies, explains that China is at a different level technologically Artificial intelligence.
This results in a number of advantages from a marketing perspective. For example, a niche organization currently charges between 10,000 and 20,000 yuan (6,911 to 13,822 R$) for a simple avatar model.
However, the service doesn't stop there. Family members of the deceased can even speak over the phone with a trained staff member whose voice and face are altered to resemble the person no longer among the living.
Sima Huapeng, founder of Nanjingbased Silicon Intelligence, believes this new technology will help create a new type of humanism, just as photos were used to remember the deceased in the past.
However, researchers in the field agree that further studies are needed so that all psychological and ethical implications of the topic are fully understood and trauma can be avoided.
Ultimately, Super Brain's Zhang recognizes that the news is a doubleedged sword, but is adamant that it's okay to continue doing what you're doing, as long as it helps those who care most most need Artificial intelligence.