“NEEDS ARE GROWING”
Wu and his wife were devastated when Xuanmo, their only child, died of a sudden stroke last year at the age of 22 while attending Exeter University in Britain.
The accounting and finance student, keen sportsman and posthumous organ donor “had such a rich and varied life”, said Wu.
“He always carried in him this desire to help people and a sense of right and wrong,” he told AFP.
Following a boom in deep learning technologies like ChatGPT in China, Wu began researching ways to resurrect him.
He gathered photos, videos and audio recordings of his son, and spent thousands of dollars hiring AI firms that cloned Xuanmo’s face and voice.
The results so far are rudimentary, but he has also set up a work team to create a database containing vast amounts of information on his son.
Wu hopes to feed it into powerful algorithms to create an avatar capable of copying his son’s thinking and speech patterns with extreme precision.
Several companies specialising in so-called “ghost bots” have emerged in the United States in recent years.
But the industry is booming in China, according to Zhang Zewei, the founder of the AI firm Super Brain and a former collaborator with Wu.
“On AI technology, China is in the highest class worldwide,” said Zhang from a workspace in the eastern city of Jingjiang.
“And there are so many people in China, many with emotional needs, which gives us an advantage when it comes to market demand.”
Super Brain charges between 10,000 and 20,000 yuan (US$1,400 to US$2,800) to create a basic avatar within about 20 days, said Zhang.
They range from those who have died to living parents unable to spend time with their children and – controversially – a heartbroken woman’s ex-boyfriend.
Clients can even hold video calls with a staff member whose face and voice are digitally overlaid with those of the person they have lost.
“The significance for … the whole world is huge,” Zhang said.
“A digital version of someone (can) exist forever, even after their body has been lost.”