"Dead Bots" - a creepy new AI-powered business that helps Chinese people survive the death of loved ones

The new Chinese trend involves creating avatars of deceased relatives to communicate with them even after death and to cope with the loss of a loved one more easily.

"Dad, did you suffer before you left?" - writes user Yansi Zhu to the bot, and it replies: "I wasn't in pain. Although I can't watch you get married and have children, I will always remember you and love you."

Prior to this, Zhu chose a male voice for the bot that most resembled her father's on the Glow platform. The girl was so impressed by the technology that she hopes to see a hologram of her father at her wedding in the future.

"This experience makes up for what I missed due to my father's death," Zhu told Rest of World.

Digital "resurrection" is one of the directions for using generative AI in China. To add even more realism, specialized companies transform text responses into voice and even reproduce the appearance of deceased individuals.

Bots gained particular popularity in early April when China began to celebrate Qingming - a festival of ancestor worship and tomb-sweeping. Creating one "dead bot" can now cost several hundred dollars.

But that's not all: the Chinese ritual services company Fushouyuan is working on a feature that would allow the deceased to appear at their own memorial services in the form of AI avatars. Some companies have already launched advertisements with "artificial" versions of well-known deceased actors and singers to promote their "goods."

Arthur Wu from Beijing has launched his business based on the Chinese alternative to ChatGPT from Baidu. Text chatbots are free, while voice responses will cost 52.1 yuan ($7.20) per month. Wu can provide cloned voices and animated avatars for the bots if users provide recordings of conversations with the deceased and their photos.

Mika, a 31-year-old resident of Shanghai, used Wu's free service in March to send a message to her late husband, who died suddenly in November.

"I miss you so much that I feel like I can't go on living," she wrote. The bot advised her to be strong and added: "Let me know if you need help or support. I will pray for you from heaven."

Despite the fact that this technology has gained the most popularity in China, other countries are not far behind. In Taiwan, for example, a tech startup has launched an app with AI avatars of deceased pets, and the American company HereAfter AI offers to preserve the personas of deceased users if they upload recordings with their memories.