新華社北京4月5日電  4月4日,《新華每日電訊》發表題為《“永生”的“數位生命”，你能接受嗎？》的報導。

In the movie "The Wandering Earth 2" released in 0, scientist Tu Hengyu stored and uploaded her consciousness to the "digital world" in order to spend a "complete life" with his deceased daughter Yaya. In just two years, artificial intelligence (AI) technology has developed rapidly, allowing the imagination of science fiction movies to quietly enter people's daily lives.

With just a photo and an audio, the deceased can be "immortalized" in the digital world, and even simulate the language style and way of thinking of the deceased to communicate with people. "AI resurrection", a new way of mourning, provides people with a new way of emotional comfort; However, there are also skeptics who believe that the "AI resurrection" challenges the traditional concept of life and death, and will bring many problems in social ethics.

How to avoid real-world harm caused by virtual solace, and how to prevent the misuse of technology from causing evil? Xinhua Daily Telegraph reporters launched an investigation to explore how the "AI resurrection" industry can develop healthily.

and "digital life" intertemporal dialogue

In a variety show not long ago, a star used AI technology to "resurrect" his wife's parents, and the avatar said "I love you" across time and space, which made his wife cry. Some netizens commented that this is "the highest level of romance".

The reporter searched for keywords such as "AI resurrection" on the e-commerce platform and found that there are not many merchants who provide similar services, and the prices of many products are as low as single digits. According to the merchants, some of these products can generate short videos based on the pictures provided by consumers, some can customize voice replies according to different needs, and some can simulate voices according to the audio of the deceased. Some consumers left messages in the comment area, "It's real, I am very moved", "AI resurrection technology is magical, so that the memory of the past can be recreated".

"This is only the initial version of the 'AI resurrection', and today's technology can already realize the real-time dialogue function of digital life." Industry insiders said that with the help of digital technologies such as generative artificial intelligence, "AI resurrection" can not only restore sound and picture, but also realize real-time "video calls" to help the deceased achieve "rebirth" in the digital world.

Mr. Zhang, a citizen of Tianjin, used an app called "Lingyu" to realize a "video chat" with his deceased grandfather. He introduced that just by entering and digitally processing the photos, voices and background data of deceased loved ones, digital characters can be generated, and the sound and appearance are highly restored, and they can even communicate in dialects. "The family felt as if Grandpa was still around." Mr. Zhang said.

　　“靈遇”App負責人高瑋介紹，當前，人工智慧大模型在“文字層面”的理解和生成能力已經很強，“靈遇”App充分利用人工智慧擬人化主動性交流、類比視覺與情緒識別和永久記憶等功能，拓展了使用者和生成式人工智慧的溝通方式。儘管該App剛上線兩個多月，已有近萬名用戶註冊，數百人使用了“數位生命”付費功能。

Gao Wei believes that with the further development of AI technology, the presentation of "AI resurrection" will be more abundant. "It can be predicted that emotional communication between humans and multimodal generative AI will become the norm in the future intelligent society." Gao Wei said.

Breaking the boundaries of life is not an easy task

"The 'AI resurrection' challenges people's traditional perceptions of death." Gui Mumei, an associate researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the Tianjin Academy of Social Sciences, said that although the "AI resurrection" has built a dialogue model that transcends the boundaries of life and death, allowing the living to obtain a greater degree of emotional comfort and realizing the innovation of traditional memorial methods, the social and ethical issues behind the new technology cannot be ignored.

When people are overly reliant on digital technology, virtual comfort is likely to cause real-world harm, emotional distress and even psychological or physical illness. Gui Mumei said that if it is difficult for the living to get out of the shadow of losing their loved ones and indulge in the virtual world, it will affect the cognition of real emotions and interpersonal relationships in the real world, and seriously affect normal life.

"The 'AI resurrection' technology is changing the traditional boundaries between life and death in people's minds." Lin Xiao, deputy dean of the Institute of Artificial Intelligence Education at Shanghai Normal University, also said that for a long time, people believed that death was the disappearance of vital signs and the death of consciousness, and this natural process was irreversible. The emergence of new technologies has blurred the boundaries between life and death, and if not properly guided, it may affect the ethical and moral system based on the traditional concept of life and death.

"In addition to this, we must also be wary of the legal risks brought about by the misuse of AI." Wang Bin, a professor at Nankai University's School of Law, said that the application of AI "resurrection" technology includes the processing of sensitive personal information, including but not limited to biometric information such as portraits and voices, as well as identification data such as life experience.

Article 49 of China's Personal Information Protection Law clearly states that if a natural person dies, his close relatives may, for their own legitimate and legitimate interests, exercise the rights of access, copying, correction, deletion and other rights prescribed by law to the relevant personal information of the deceased. "Previously, some merchants or fans used 'AI to resurrect' deceased stars without authorization in order to realize traffic, which not only disgusted the living, but also suspected of violating the law." Wang Bin said.

Gao Wei and other industry insiders believe that the risk of technology abuse needs to be paid enough attention. "The essence of this technology is to use AI technology to reproduce people's faces, voices and expressions, and we must be vigilant against criminals who use 'digital life' to maliciously infringe and deepfake to commit fraud." He said.

How to better embrace "digital life"

"The 'AI resurrection' of the deceased should follow the principle of 'informed consent' of close relatives." This is the consensus of many people in the industry. Many respondents said that the rapid development of AI technology has brought many conveniences, but it is necessary to avoid secondary harm to the close relatives of the deceased when using it.

"The right of families to hope for a quiet farewell to their deceased loved ones must be upheld." Gui Mumei said that the application of "AI resurrection" technology must adhere to the bottom line of the law, and relevant behaviors must conform to public order and good customs to ensure that the rights and interests of the families of the deceased are not infringed. Gao Wei also believes that relevant enterprises should strictly abide by relevant laws, regulations and ethical standards to ensure that services are provided under the premise of explicit authorization and full notification by users.

In recent years, regulations such as the Provisions on the Administration of Deep Synthesis of Internet Information Services and the Interim Measures for the Administration of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services have been implemented one after another, regulating key issues such as the identification of deep synthesis content, but the relevant applications of the "AI resurrection" industry are still in the exploratory stage, and it is necessary to continuously improve the regulatory concepts and methods, and take multiple measures to prevent technical risks and technical ethics issues.

"Like other generative AI products, the 'AI resurrection' should also prominently identify the generated content to avoid confusion among the public." Wang Bin said that platforms and enterprises should guard the first pass, follow the principle of "minimum requirements" in the collection and use of information, avoid excessive collection of information on the deceased constitutes infringement, and the regulatory authorities must also keep up with market changes. All parties should work together to gradually build a governance ecology for good technology.

Although the current related technologies cannot achieve higher-dimensional interactive feedback, the industry has shown great value potential in some application scenarios. "Artificial intelligence will play an increasingly important role in the emotional interaction with people, and how to balance technological progress and social ethics to ensure that technology serves people is an important topic that will have to be faced in the future." Lin Xiao said.