Journalists investigate the phenomenon of AI resurrecting the dead
Using AI to resurrect the voices, faces, and smiles of loved ones requires improving the rules system
□ Our reporter Zhao Li
□ Li Jifan, our intern
"Only 52.1 yuan, you can restore the appearance of your deceased loved one and chat with him or her." With the development of generative AI technology, it seems increasingly possible to "see again" with your deceased loved ones.
A recent investigation by a reporter from "Rule of Law Daily" found that using AI to "resurrect" dead people has developed into a business.
On some e-commerce platforms, there are many merchants engaged in AI "resurrection" business.
On a certain e-commerce platform, the prices of products "resurrected" by AI range from a few yuan to tens of yuan to hundreds or even thousands of yuan.
At the same time, in recent years, fraud methods such as AI voice-changing and AI face-changing have become more and more advanced, deceiving users' emotions and money.
Experts interviewed suggested that before providing services, AI “resurrection” technology providers should clearly require users to provide relevant certificates and strengthen technical precautions to avoid AI products infringing on the legitimate rights and interests of others or being used for fraud and other illegal activities.
Relevant departments must strengthen supervision and promote the establishment of industry standards to not only ensure technological innovation, but also protect human value and dignity.
Businesses doing AI resurrection business are coming out one after another
For Liu Fang (pseudonym), a native of Yunnan who suddenly lost her father, not seeing her father for the last time in a foreign land was the biggest regret in life.
When she returns to her hometown, after finishing her father's funeral affairs, seeing the sofa where her father once sat, or accidentally clicking on the WeChat chat box with her father... her tears will flow down uncontrollably.
"What did he want to say to me when he was dying? Would he still tell me to eat well? Don't get angry with my husband?" When she was sad, Liu Fang always shut herself in her room and looked at herself and her father over and over again. chat history.
Until she came across a business on the short video platform that provided AI "resurrecting" relatives, Liu Fang quickly placed an order as if she had grasped a life-saving straw.
"I really want to see my father again. Even though I know it's untrue, I still want to hear my father speak to me and listen to his instructions."
After paying more than 200 yuan and providing recordings and photos of her father during his lifetime, as well as what she wanted to hear from his father, Liu Fang received a short video.
In the video, Liu Fang watched her father smiling and talking to her dozens of times in just a few dozen seconds.
The so-called AI "resurrection" of the deceased means using artificial intelligence technology to input the text descriptions, pictures, videos and sound data of the deceased relatives into the AI algorithm model to simulate and generate a digital image with the personality, memory, images and videos of the deceased. and sound.
Chen Liang (pseudonym), who works in the field of digital "resurrection", said that their products are mainly divided into two types.
One is to use video as a medium to create birthday wishes or comfort videos through the photos and sounds of the deceased.
The other is to develop a conversational chat robot. This robot not only has the voice and appearance characteristics of the deceased, but can also simulate the personality and memory of the customer's relatives, communicate with the user, and provide customers with a personalized experience.
The corresponding prices of these different forms of products range from 52.1 yuan to 521 yuan.
The reporter noticed that on some e-commerce platforms, there are also many merchants doing AI "resurrection" business.
On a certain e-commerce platform, the prices of these AI-resurrected products range from a few yuan to tens of yuan to hundreds or even thousands of yuan.
The reporter consulted one of the merchants and found that there are three products in the store, including creative AI to repair relatives' "resurrection" photos, exclusive AI dubbing simulation and customization, and AI cover singer voice cloning. All three products are priced at 10 yuan. .
Some merchants told reporters that the specific price of the product should be determined based on the photos and requirements. If you just want the people in the photos to move, you only need to provide a frontal photo, and the film will take about 10 seconds.
If you want the person in the photo to speak, you need to provide a front-facing photo and audio, and the price is determined based on the length of the video.
If there is no audio, text content will be provided, and the merchant will provide Mandarin audio.
As for the "real-time interactive" AI products mentioned by the reporter, all 10 merchants on an e-commerce platform consulted said they could not make them.
Some merchants explained that to achieve real-time interaction, AI training is required, which cannot be achieved with just one software.
AI resurrection faces challenges such as technical limitations
The "resurrection" of AI has always been a controversial topic.
Some people believe that with the support of generative AI technology, it becomes possible to "see again" loved ones who have passed away, making up for the emotional shortcomings.
Some people also believe that such an approach is meaningless. If the person is gone, the person is gone. It will only make it more difficult to get over the pain of losing a loved one.
Some people also question whether the "relatives" cloned from the deceased's image samples are still the same people we know?
The reporter noticed that in China, production teams like Chen Liang are not uncommon. Some companies have accelerated their involvement in the field of AI "resurrecting" relatives. For example, an AI technology team located in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province has helped 600 people in more than half a year. Multiple families achieve "online reunion", and the average cost per order ranges from a few thousand yuan to 10,000 yuan.
Even so, Chen Liang told reporters that the team encountered many challenges during the actual operation.
For example, technical limitations are a major challenge. Sound cloning requires clear sound files, and the current algorithm mainly supports Mandarin and has limited support for dialects and accents.
"Because most of the deceased are older, there are not many sound files left by them during their lifetime, which limits the expansion and application scope of the product. At the same time, people also hold a wait-and-see attitude towards the mode of talking to the digital image of the deceased by entering text , not everyone is willing to try or trust this kind of innovation." Chen Liang said.
"The ratio of completed to unfinished is about 3:2." Zhang Zewei, head of Super Mind Studio, which uses AI technology to help customers "resurrect" deceased relatives, revealed that there are many reasons for being unable to provide services: the client provides too little material , someone in the family objects, etc.
According to Zheng Ning, director of the Law Department of the School of Cultural Industry Management of Communication University of China, in order to protect the personality rights of the deceased, the producer can only carry out relevant "resurrection" operations with the consent of the deceased's heirs.
At the same time, after using AI technology to digitally "resurrect" the deceased, the producer still needs to bear some legal responsibilities. "For example, if the produced image deviates too much from the actual situation and causes certain distortions to the image of the user's deceased loved ones, it may infringe The deceased’s reputation rights, portrait rights and other related rights and interests.”
Zhao Zhanhan, a lawyer at Beijing Jiawei Law Firm, mentioned that although the deceased no longer has the right to privacy, the deceased’s close relatives still need to protect the deceased’s privacy rights and portrait rights.
"If there is a breach of privacy or damage to reputation, the next of kin of the deceased has the right to initiate a lawsuit."
Chen Liang told reporters that when a user expresses a desire to create a digital person of the deceased, the production team will ask the user who is willing to consume to prove the relationship with the deceased and provide relevant proof that the deceased has passed away to prevent people with bad intentions from generating products. Used for illegal activities such as fraud.
Chen Liang said that in addition, in order to achieve in-depth dialogue between AI digital humans and users, such production teams generally connect their products to large-scale model systems, and the large-scale model systems serve as databases to provide corpus support. “In this process, my The production team will remove some sensitive words to prevent unscrupulous users from controlling digital people through videos and inducing digital people to ask relatives and friends about private information such as bank card passwords. As long as this possibility exists, the digital people will restart the system to solve potential problems. fraud problem."
There is currently a lack of specific laws and regulations to regulate
During the survey, interviewed industry insiders revealed that as a subdivision of the application of generative AI technology, there are start-up teams and leading companies that are trying to provide AI "resurrection" services for the dead.
Due to various reasons, this special business is still in a low-key and cautious exploration stage as a whole.
In this regard, Zheng Ning also suggested that for potential audiences who want to "resurrect" their loved ones through AI technology, choosing a formal organization is the key to ensuring the security of personal information and legitimate rights and interests.
"Signing a contract is also an important part. The contract must clearly stipulate that the digital person's property rights and other rights belong to individuals rather than enterprises. In addition, the contract should also include detailed provisions on liability for breach of contract. If the cooperative enterprise is found to have violated laws and regulations, it should Report and complain to the competent authorities in a timely manner. This kind of reporting can help maintain the legal order of the entire industry and protect the legitimate rights and interests of the majority of users," Zheng Ning said.
In addition, according to the "Interim Measures for the Management of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services" promulgated in July 2023, if data annotation is performed during the research and development process of generative artificial intelligence technology, the provider should develop a clear, specific, and operable method that meets the requirements of these measures. Annotation rules; carry out data annotation quality assessment, take samples to verify the accuracy of annotation content; conduct necessary training for annotation personnel, enhance law-abiding awareness, and supervise and guide annotation personnel to carry out annotation work in a standardized manner.
During the investigation, the reporter found that most consumers who purchased AI digital "resurrection" products did not see relevant labels to prove that the products were produced by AI.
Many consumers do not understand the relevant provisions of the "Interim Measures for the Management of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services".
In this regard, Zhao Zhan pointed out that it is an illegal act if the producer uses its own artificial intelligence software to generate products and does not label them during the sales process.
If products generated using other artificial intelligence software are marked with relevant information, but the producer removes it through technical means, whether it complies with legal regulations is still open to question.
At present, although artificial intelligence technology has not emerged in our country for a long time, and the "Interim Measures for the Management of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services" and other regulations were issued relatively timely, there are currently no specific laws and regulations for technologies such as digital "resurrection", and it may be necessary to Standardize over time when issues arise in the future.
As a practitioner, Chen Liang also hopes that the future use of digital "resurrection" technology will require relevant departments to issue qualification licenses, and relevant departments will strengthen supervision and management, so that market participants can feel more assured.
"Legislation is usually lagging behind, especially in the field of new technologies." Zheng Ning said that it is often difficult to solve problems by legislating or amending laws when new problems arise. Bottom-line problems must be solved through legislation. In addition, "soft law" can be used For example, industry standards and corporate self-regulatory behaviors, etc., play a normative role in actual operations. "In the field of digital 'resurrection', industry associations can take the lead in formulating ethical standards. Companies and practitioners can follow these standards to help solve problems."
"Any illegal incident of fraud or infringement has a specific perpetrator, grasp the core facts, and use existing legal rules to investigate. In this process, AI is actually just a tool." In Zheng Ning's view, overall, The boundaries of scientific and technological development should be carried out on the premise of maintaining social rule of law, protecting individual rights and interests, and ensuring the bottom line of ethics.
The promotion of digital "resurrection" technology requires more supervision and regulation, which not only ensures technological innovation, but also protects human value and dignity.
Experts interviewed believe that for the use of digital "resurrection" technology that is difficult to regulate under existing laws, new rules can be introduced through continuous "patching" to gradually improve the normative system for regulating digital "resurrection" technology.
Compared with specialized and systematic legislation, this progressive approach to rule improvement can leave enough room for the development of this new field.