A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Since ChatGPT launched in 2022, we've been debating how generative artificial intelligence is changing life. Now, in China, it's also changing the way people approach death. Here's NPR's Emily Feng.
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: In 2018, Sun Kai's mother suddenly died. He was devastated. He could not accept he'd never see her again - or could he? At the time of her death, Sun, who is a tech executive, was working on modeling human voices.
SUN KAI: (Through interpreter) Then I thought, if I'm modeling voices, why not model my mom's likeness as well? I raised this question with the company chairman.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
FENG: After weeks of fine-tuning, they managed to create this AI rendering of his mother, which Sun says he now talks to every day.
SUN: (Through interpreter) I don't see her as a digital avatar but as my real mother. When work pressure ramps up, I just want to talk to her. There are some things you can only tell your mother.
FENG: Recreating qualities of our lost loved ones with technology is not a new idea. But it has become more affordable and more common. Silicon Intelligence, the company Sun works for, says it can create a basic avatar for as little as $30 USD and with just a few seconds of video. The avatars look and talk almost exactly like the real person. But AI companies do still struggle with simulating the personality and life experiences of people. Here's Zhang Zewei, the founder of Super Brain, another company. It offers what it calls a resurrection service.
ZHANG ZEWEI: (Through interpreter) The crucial bit is cloning a person's thoughts, documenting what a person thought and experienced daily.
FENG: For an AI avatar to be truly generative and to chat like a person, Zhang admits it would take an estimated 10 years of prep to gather data and to take notes on a person's life. In fact, although generative AI is progressing, the desire to remember our lost loved ones usually outpaces the technology we have and our regulation. Chinese AI firms only allow people to digitally clone themselves or for family members to clone the deceased. But ethicists are already warning about the unforeseen emotional impacts this could have.
MICHEL PUECH: The wish to be remembered is not new. But is it a good thing? I'm not sure.
FENG: This is Michel Puech, a philosophy professor at the Sorbonne University in Paris. He cautions against overhyping the ability of AI technology currently to go beyond what existing technology already does. For example, looking at a photograph or hearing a recording of a dead loved one's voice evokes memories, just as AI clones aim to do.
PUECH: So it's just a better technology to deal with something we already do.
FENG: But Puesh says the uncanny realism of AI clones or avatars carries an extra risk, the risk of addiction to a simulation rather than true consolation from grief.
PUECH: And replacing real life. So if it works too well, that's the danger. So in a sense, having too much satisfying experience of that person will apparently annihilate the grief of death. But in fact, it's largely an illusion.
FENG: And AI avatars raise yet unanswered regulatory questions, such as is it OK to destroy an avatar based on a real person, and who's data can be used, and under what circumstances. Yang Lei, a resident in the southern city of Nanjing, faced these questions when his uncle suddenly died.
YANG LEI: (Speaking Mandarin).
FENG: But as he explains it, he wanted to hide the news from his ailing grandmother. She had already lost numerous family members.
YANG: (Speaking Mandarin).
FENG: And he feared the shock of yet another death would kill her. So he turned to technology to help him with a little white lie. He asked an AI company to create a video avatar of his uncle.
YANG: (Speaking Mandarin).
FENG: Then Yang hired a real person who, disguised with this digital filter, would then call Yang's grandmother on holidays pretending to be her son. Yang eventually did tell his grandma her son had died, but only when she was in better health. He says he does not regret lying to his grandmother, and he says he would definitely consider digitally cloning himself in the future.
YANG: (Speaking Mandarin).
FENG: But he says he does not believe an AI clone is the same thing as the human it replaced.
Emily Feng, NPR News.
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