ChatGPT AI Helps China's Undertakers Connect People to Deceased Loved Ones

ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot of OpenAI, is now helping undertakers or funeral firms in China.

They use cutting-edge technology to connect grieving people to their deceased loved ones.Apart from the chatbot, some Chinese undertakers use image-generating AI technology, such as Midjourney, alongside other platforms.

China's Undertakers Use AI to Connect Grieving People to Loved Ones

AI these days, specifically chatbots, have taken over the daily lives of some folks. It does all sorts of things like content creation, marketing, coding, and much more, as per SimpliLearn.

But this time, the undertakers in China are using emerging technology to let mourning people seemingly reconnect with their loved ones. According to a report by the Straits Times, some funerals in China have begun diving into AI to start providing their customers with a new flair of services.

Some Chinese undertakers are now taking advantage of the popularity of AI technology nowadays. But unlike most users, funeral firms in the Asian nation are using it to create a digital version of people who left the living world.

How ChatGPT AI is Used to Mimic Deceased Loved Ones?

Straits Times notes in its report that a Chinese company, Shanghai Fushouyun, started offering digital funeral services, which uses AI, last January 2022.

Videos of these new types of services have started appearing online. Some bloggers shared clips wherein funerals use AI to allow them to speak with their loved ones.

A blogger, Wu Wuliu, shared a video that showcases how AI generates a "virtual digital human" version of his grandmother. He notes that it was made possible by AI painting and ChatGPT to deliver a life-like image of his grandma.

To mimic the deceased's personality, funerals in China are now using the highly popular AI chatbot ChatGPT. For generating the appearance, Midjourney helps do the job.

Some funerals receive high praise for these types of services, which help mourners connect with their deceased loved ones. However, others have expressed concerns about the ethical implications of using AI to communicate with the deceased.

AI Tech for Mourning

It is worth noting that it is not the first instance that the emerging technology of AI has attempted to connect grieving people with their loved ones.

After all, people have always longed to connect with their loved ones even after bidding farewell to the living world, The Washington Post reports. And as such, AI tech has strived to help recreate what appears to be a post-death contact.

AI tech that explicitly offers such a feature has started emerging. One of them is aptly called Augmented Eternity.

A research affiliate with MIT Media Lab, Hossein Rahnama, has been working on it. It should provide a life-like digital version of a dead person based on social media posts, emails, text, and photos, allowing relatives to reconnect with them.

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