Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

With AI technology, we can resurrect our deceased loved ones and express our grief.

In our album, there are photos and videos of loved ones.

In our social media, there are voice strips of loved ones.

We also have thriving AI technology--we meet our loved ones in a different way.

In 2020, a young Chinese software engineer in Hangzhou stumbled upon an article about mouth synchronization technology.

It works very simply--using a computer program to match mouth movements to voice recordings.

He immediately remembered his grandfather, who had been dead for ten years.

"Can I talk to my grandfather about this technology?" Yu Jialin asked himself.

In fact, this is not the first time we have tried to reconstruct our deceased loved ones with the development of technology.

With the help of various chat programs, AI models for facial recognition, speech recognition, motion recognition models, and the audio and video data of our loved ones, we can try to reproduce the personality and memory of our deceased loved ones.

Then you can "talk" to them again.

Yu Jialin is 29 years old. Twelve years ago, his grandfather left him forever.

People always regret something after their loved ones leave. Yu Jialin remembers yelling at his grandfather when he interrupted a game he was playing.

Another time, Yu Jialin told Grandpa not to pick him up from school again.

It was this small thing that made him and his family miss his late grandfather so much.

Yu Jialin said that since his grandfather died, they have avoided mentioning him. In order not to let sadness occupy themselves, they choose to forget as much as possible.

Griefbot Now Griefbot is coming.

This is an AI model that has been around for several years and can mimic humans by learning all kinds of information about our deceased relatives.

But just last year, generative AI exploded, and Griefbot's performance was pushed to another level.

Griefbot in the past required a lot of data. Now, engineers like Yu Jialin can feed their preserved data into the model and accurately reproduce how they look, talk, and think.

Foreign researchers say that today's technology allows AI to reshape a person's personality without too many samples.

Especially when you add systems like ChatGPT, which already know how most people naturally speak or write.

The researchers said that after entering the required data and fine-tuning the system, they could achieve 99% similarity. Nothing particularly obvious.

With this technology, Yu Jialin went back to his grandmother and found a pile of old letters belonging to his grandfather, whom Yu Jialin had never met.

At the same time, he also found photos and videos taken by his grandfather more than ten years ago, as well as text messages sent by his grandfather.

Unfortunately, after weeks of training and debugging, Yu Jialin's programming ability is still limited. It takes about 10 minutes to respond to each question in the interaction.

For example, he asks Griefbot,"Grandpa, guess who I am?"

Bot responded,"It doesn't matter who you are, life itself is a beautiful miracle."

However, a larger amount of information given to this Bot could still make the situation much better.

"Happy Tea House is off the air."

Grandpa said,"Yeah, that's a shame. This is my favorite show, and I wanted to watch more episodes."

At this point, Yu Jialin felt that the program had matured. So he showed the Bot to his grandmother.

Yu Jialin's grandmother quietly watched her husband answer her questions on the screen, a hint of emotion in her eyes.

Yu Jialin said he believed the robot would be a good spiritual sustenance for Grandma.

In the face of reporters interviewed, Yu Jialin said he didn't want to share these conversations that belonged only to himself and his grandfather.

D-ID in a video on station b, up Lord Wu Wuliu also restored the whole process of "resurrection" grandmother for us.

He first chose the current mainstream AI painting software Midjourney to generate a lifelike portrait of Grandma. AI generated some choices based on the uploaded pictures and text descriptions, and UP chose the most realistic one based on the memories in his mind.

Then follow suit, refining certain facial features with text. Such as wrinkles, eyes, hair and manner.

We can see that current technology can already make the generated avatar details perfect.

The next step is audio. Again, these materials come from past phone recordings, video recordings or WeChat voices. Just like Yu Jialin, Wu Wuliu uploaded the audio of his grandmother's phone call to AI.

He then adjusted it using the frequency editing software AU. And cut the clearer audio samples into short sentences of several seconds for easy labeling.

Finally, the processed audio is packaged and put into the Text To Speech system.

Wu Wuliu tried to convert text to speech by using Text To Speech System.

Now, the basic materials are complete. The next step is the most critical step-generating virtual digital people.

With D-ID, users can create digital avatars and communicate with them.

Select avatar on the left and upload text or audio on the right.

Grandma's image on the website is lifelike, and the audio perfectly restores Grandma's "native accent." With the usual chat content on the right, it was like a face-to-face video call with Grandma.

Interestingly, Grandma's "replies" are also generated by ChatGPT.

Wu told ChatGPT,"I miss my grandma, can you imitate her tone to talk to me?"

Artificial intelligence with human touch is hard not to move people to tears. With the help of memories of her grandmother, Wu Wuliu also tried her best to make ChatGPT more like her grandmother.

The ultimate goal of technology is to empower people. This power is not only material, but more importantly spiritual. While these chats are not entirely personified, there are some inappropriate expressions.

But in general, the small details of life can still give people the most tender experience.

A Boston expert says new technology is sure to change the way people express their grief.

In the 1980s, people might write stories about loved ones to honor them. Today, however, electronic preservation is more common.

Psychologists often help bereaved clients talk into an empty chair as if their loved one were still sitting there.

Of course, the new transformations brought about by new technologies are not necessarily good.

At that time, Wu Wuliu's video caused extensive discussion on Station B.

The idea of turning deceased loved ones into virtual figures is something new. The shift in perspective is not easy.

Some netizens said that digital virtual people could not be the spiritual sustenance of those who remembered them after all.

There may even be cases of excessive reliance on AI.

Because of this, Yu Jialin has deleted the robot that reshaped his grandfather.

He said he didn't want to be overly immersed in the past, let alone hold AI all day long.

References:

https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-make-money-china-grieving-raise-dead-griefbot-2023-5

This article comes from Weixin Official Accounts: Xinzhiyuan (ID: AI_era)

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