Artificial intelligence startups are reportedly now allowing people to converse with their deceased loved ones once more with the use of the booming technology.
Numerous start-ups and tech companies volunteer their skills to develop AI copies of departed loved ones, and beneficiaries' families are welcome to participate in the process as well.
In one instance, a group of volunteers reportedly used artificial intelligence to recreate the voice and appearance of a deceased mother.
Volunteers wrote the screenplay, which allowed her adult and teenage daughters to see and hear their mother's response to a letter they had written.
The mother gave her young kids a lot of credit for overcoming adversity and providing emotional support to the rest of the family following her passing.
The woman's voice was recreated by Professor Lee Tan, an associate dean of education at the engineering faculty of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Her facial expressions were designed by entrepreneur Tom Tong Kwun-wah, and the virtual reality living space where she was put was built by HTC's head of customer and product support, Lawrence Cheung Cheong-ming.
Tong stated that because most software was made with English speakers in mind, it was difficult to generate lip movements that accurately matched Cantonese pronunciations.
Lee claimed that the technological difficulties were insignificant given the emotions involved, even though he had to work with less than a minute of recorded broken sentences to create a coherent one-minute speech.
The professor claimed that while his team's creation could replicate the mother's accent and voice, it could do a better job of emulating her rhythm.
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Vocofy AI
Lee claimed that his team would typically decline private requests to recreate the voices of deceased persons due to ethical considerations.
However, he decided to take up the family's initiative after being moved by the daughters' narrative and realizing that they had given their permission for a restricted recording of their mother's voice.
Lee's start-up, Vocofy AI, has created a text-to-voice model that maintains the original voices of people who have lost the capacity to speak.
Other AI Recreations
AI recreations of departed loved ones are not new; a new tool called 'Live Forever Mode,' which is anticipated later this year, is reportedly integrating virtual reality and AI to build digital avatars of departed loved ones and replicate the person so that future generations can connect with them.
Artur Sychov, an internet entrepreneur, developed an artificial intelligence program that, after just 30 minutes of user observation, can imitate a person's speech, mannerisms, and habits.
At its offices in Prague, Czech Republic, Artur's company, Somnium Space, is trying out its "live forever mode" before to its official launch.
Somnium Space is a 3D metaverse platform that users can visit with a virtual reality headset. They exist in this world as avatars, capable of gaming, creating art, going to events, and purchasing and selling virtual goods belonging to other users.
The platform was launched in 2017 and has 300,000 downloads. Between 50 and 250 people check in every day. Many questions remain, even if the "live forever mode" device is expected to appear officially later this year.
A subscription fee will finance it, albeit neither the sum nor the designated beneficiary has been determined after the author's passing.
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(Photo: Tech Times)
