Man uses AI to revive his late father to comfort his grandmother, netizens argue

The boy wanted to comfort his grandmother with heart disease, as well as ease his own pain, so he used deepfake AI technology to revive his deceased father. But his actions caused controversy in the community.

The guy in this story is named Sun (lives in Liaoning province, China). One day, he used artificial intelligence (AI) technology, disguised as his deceased father, to comfort his sick grandmother, receiving many mixed opinions from the public.

Ton said his father passed away from a rare cancer 6 months ago. However, he still hid this information from his grandmother, who is suffering from heart disease, because he was afraid that she would not be able to withstand the big shock. The boy lied to her and said that his father was receiving long-term treatment at a famous hospital in Beijing.

Because she missed her child, her grandmother kept asking to see Ton's father. He had no choice but to lie to her that his father was not allowed to bring cell phones into the hospital. After that, the boy said he was going to Beijing to record a video of his father and bring it back to his grandmother.

As mentioned, Ton's father passed away from a terrible disease, so he was unable to meet and record his appearance for his grandmother to see. Therefore, the young man used AI deepfake technology to "revive" his birth father.

Through research, deepfake technology is a combination of "deep learning" and "fake", using AI to scan videos and portraits of a person and then merge them with separate videos. The character's voice, facial details such as eyes, mouth, nose and facial movements will be made exactly like the real thing.

Getting to work, Ton used old photos, placed his biological father's face on his face and imitated his voice combined with conversion software. "Mom, I'm doing very well in Beijing. They can't cure my disease but they have it under control," the boy said in the video, impersonating his father's voice.

Ton carefully sent the video to his aunt first to check the quality and then showed it to his grandmother. Grandmother Ton, who has poor eyesight but has an optimistic lifestyle, believes that her son is still healthy and is telling her in the video.

It is known that when his father got sick, Ton took him to dozens of hospitals across China and abroad, even went to temples to pray, but still did not survive.

The boy found it very difficult to accept the death of his father. So disguising as his father was also his way of saying goodbye to him. The video of Ton telling the story of swapping faces and pretending to be his father was posted online and received 5 million views.

Many netizens were very moved and agreed with Ton's approach: "This is the best way to use deepfake technology"; "You probably know better than anyone what happened, but you just need a little comfort"; "Ton is a very understanding and filial nephew."

However, there are many opinions that this is an overreaching behavior. It can cause consequences that even the person doing it cannot foresee.

With the explosion of AI technology, the authenticity of "resurrection" is increasingly improving, and images of the deceased created by software have recently become a hot topic on Chinese social networks. , but also caused a lot of controversy.

On March 16, when "resurrected" images of the late Chinese singer and actress Kieu Nham Luong appeared online, his parents publicly expressed their discontent. They said:

"We cannot accept it and feel uncomfortable. The 'reviving' of Nham Luong did not have our consent and it is reopening the trauma."

According to The Paper, although using AI to "revive" loved ones has received a lot of attention, due to many potential legal risks, it is still an extremely rarely used service. The industry is generally still in the observation and experimentation phase.

The old man passed away and left the house to his eldest daughter-in-law. His two sons were left empty-handed and discovered something shocking. Đình Như20:45:18 20/03/2025Mr. Lac was born and raised in a poor rural area in China. At the age of 20, he got married and had two sons. Everything seemed to be perfect until his wife suddenly passed away. Since that incident, this man has had to be both a father and a mother.