Bereaved father in China takes help of AI to digitally ‘resurrect’ late son | Trending

People in China are increasingly using AI to “resurrect” their family members who have passed away. While there are reservations about the application of the new technology, some experts say it can “offer much-needed comfort for people devastated the loss of loved ones”. At a quiet cemetery in eastern China, bereaved father Seakoo Wu pulls out his phone, places it on a black granite gravestone and plays a recording of his son. They are words that the late student never spoke, but brought into being with artificial intelligence. (AFP) One such person who used this technology was Seakoo Wu. He used it to play a recording of his late son, Xuanmo, in which he is heard saying things that he had never spoken while alive. The recording is powered AI. Stay tuned with breaking news on HT Channel on Facebook. Join Now “I know you’re in great pain every day because of me, and feel guilty and helpless. Even though I can’t be your side ever again, my soul is still in this world, accompanying you through life,” these words of Xuanmo are heard in the recording, reports AFP. The bereaved father also shared his feelings on using this technology to create a lifelike avatar of his departed son. “Once we synchronise reality and the metaverse, I’ll have my son with me again. I can train him… so that when he sees me, he knows I’m his father,” Wu told the outlet. He added that he wants to create the replica in virtual reality in a way that behaves just like his departed son. After losing his son, a 22-year-old accounting and finance student, Wu started researching ways to resurrect him virtually. He gathered pictures, videos and audio of his son. He even spent “thousands of dollars hiring AI firms that cloned Xuanmo’s face and voice”. While the results are still rudimentary, he managed to create a vast database of information about his son. Industry expert on the increasing demands of ‘resurrection’ through AI:”On AI technology, China is in the highest class worldwide. And there are so many people in China, many with emotional needs, which gives us an advantage when it comes to market demand,” Zhang Zewei, the founder of the AI firm Super Brain and a former collaborator with Wu, told AFP. Zewei added that the company charges 10,000 and 20,000 yuan ($1,400-$2,800) to create a basic avatar which takes about 20 days. “A digital version of someone (can) ex forever, even after their body has been lost,” the founder added. Is it a double-edged sword?While some experts have expressed that this technology would “bring about a new kind of humanism”, a few argued that further research is needed to “understand the psychological and ethical implications” of this tech. “A key question here is… how ‘loyal’ are the ghost bots to the personality they were designed to mimic. What happens if they do things that will ‘contaminate’ the memory of the person they are supposed to represent?” Tal Morse, a visiting research fellow at the Centre for Death and Society at Britain’s University of Bath, told AFP. Super Brain’s Zhan also described it as a “double-edged sword”.