AI Companies Help Chinese Mourners During Tomb Sweeping Day, Here's How!

By Giuliano De Leon

Apr 04, 2024 02:25 AM EDT

AI Companies Help Chinese Mourners During Tomb Sweeping Day, Here's How
An elderly man sweeps a tomb at the Babaoshan People's Cemetery in Beijing, a day before the annual Tomb-Sweeping festival, also known as Qingming Festival, on April 4, 2022.
(Photo : NOEL CELIS/AFP via Getty Images)

AI companies are helping Chinese mourners remember their loved ones who passed. For the annual Tomb Sweeping Day (Qingming Festival or Ching Ming Festival), many AI firms offer services to help China's people remember and revive their beloved relatives.

AI Companies Help Chinese Mourners During Tomb Sweeping Day

According to the South China Morning Post, Tomb Sweeping Day occurs 15 days after the spring equinox in China. It is a special day to honor the dead.

During this festival, Chinese residents will sweep the tombs of their deceased loved ones. Aside from this, they also burn papers as offerings to the dead.

This 2024 Tomb Sweeping Day will be quite different, thanks to the services offered by AI companies in China. For example, some of them help Chinese netizens create moving digital avatars of their loved ones for just 20 yuan, or around $3.

READ NEXT: New Microsoft-TESDA Partnership to Equip More Than 100,000 Philippine Women With AI, Cybersecurity Skills

Chinese Mourners Turn To AI

The Guardian reported that Chinese mourners now use artificial intelligence to commune with the departed. One of them is Bao Xiaobai, a famous Taiwanese singer.

He decided to resurrect his 22-year-old daughter, who died back in 2022. To do this, he used AI to generate an audio recording of her daughter.

"People around me think I've lost my mind," said the Taiwanese singer.

However, he explained that he did this because he wanted to hear her daughter's voice again. Right now, the demand for digital clones of the departed is drastically increasing in China.

This happens as the Chinese AI industry expands into human-like avatars. It was recently estimated that China's market size for digital humans generated by AI was 12 billion yuan or $1.6 billion.

Analysts expect this record to quadruple in 2025 as the demand for AI-generated digital avatars for deceased people increases.  

READ MORE: Japan to Boost Workplace Productivity with AI Amid Shrinking Workforce

© 2024 VCPOST, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

Join the Conversation

Real Time Analytics