China’s burgeoning e-commerce industry hosts a growing number of companies offering “digital cloning” and “digital resurrection” services.
For as little as a few dollars, customers can animate photographs to create the illusion of a speaking person.
Silicon Intelligence is one such provider, offering basic digital avatars for around $30. This service requires minimal input: just a short, high-quality video and audio clip of the desired individual.
More sophisticated, interactive avatars powered by generative artificial intelligence (AI) can cost thousands. However, a critical limitation is data availability.
Zhang Zewei, founder of Super Brain AI, emphasizes the importance of capturing a person’s thoughts and experiences. His company collects detailed life stories from clients, integrating them into existing chatbot technology to create lifelike AI avatars capable of engaging conversation.
The most extreme of this digital resurrection is the “digital cloning” of a dead person.
Once confined to the realm of science fiction, the concept of digitally cloning deceased individuals is now a tangible reality.
Recent advancements in AI technology, such as the powerful language models developed by Baidu (Ernie) and OpenAI (ChatGPT), combined with increased computational resources, have paved the way for private companies to offer affordable digital replicas of real people.
A tech executive in China, Sun Kai, related that he often turns to his mother for support.
However, his mother passed on in 2018. He instead “talks” to her, via a digital avatar–rendered by AI–to look and sound just like his flesh-and-blood mother, who died in 2018.
“I do not treat [the avatar] as a kind of digital person. I truly regard it as a mother,” said Sun, 47, from his office in China’s eastern port city of Nanjing. He estimates he converses with her avatar at least once a week. “I feel that this might be the most perfect person to confide in, without exception.” READ MORE AI NEWS.
