A new trend has appeared in China: people create chat bots with the personality and memory of their dead loved ones, hoping to talk to them again. These bots are called “griffibots” (from the English grief – grief) and are based on advanced technologies of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
One of these griffobots was created by a 29-year-old Chinese programmer Yu Jiangin. He managed to reproduce his grandfather, who died almost ten years ago. Yu gathered old letters, photographs and videos of his grandfather, and taught AI to imitate his speech and thinking. He wanted to apologize to his grandfather because he was once rude with him.
Yu used the popular ChatGPT platform, which can imitate human speech. As practice shows, in order for AI to learn the style of a particular person, there is no need much data. The system needs to be slightly a little to get 99% of the similarity with the right person, the differences will be minimal.
However, the technology is still imperfect and cannot completely recreate live communication. Yu admitted that his bot responded rather slowly and very general phrases. But when the bot remembered his beloved television show, Yu felt that he had reached the goal. In the end, Yu decided to remove the bot, fearing to become dependent on him.
In fact, Yu is not alone in his desire to “resurrect” the dead loved ones. Other examples of AI for these purposes appeared in China. For example, a blogger from Shanghai named Vuliu created a bot of his grandmother. And one of the Chinese cemeteries was used by AI and cloning voice to recreate a digital copy of people who were buried in this cemetery.
However, the griffobots cause not only interest, but also disputes. Psychologists warn of the possible negative consequences of such communication that can affect the emotional state of a person. In addition, there are a number of ethical problems associated with the protection of personal information of the dead and obtaining their consent to the use of AI. There is also a risk of fraud on the part of the so -called “mediums”, which can impersonate the intermediary between the living and the dead and use AI for deception. In China, mediums are usually trusted much more than in the rest of the world, and often do not consider it a “divorce.”
Despite all the difficulties and dangers, this technology, apparently, will gradually continue its development, and all legal issues will be resolved over time. The most obvious decision will be to obtain written consent from a person during his lifetime. Now few people believe in the technology, but in the future, perhaps it will become widespread, and death as such will cease to exist and frighten its unknown. There will only be a “rebirth” of a person from the physical shell to digital.