During the Qingming Dynasty, the traditional custom of visiting tombs and worshiping ancestors is being changed by technologies such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence.
Some cemeteries have developed metaverse worship forms, restoring photos and images of the deceased into videos to "reunite" with the living; With AR technology, people can also remember their deceased people online at any time.
There is also a new form of burial called "space burial". The company offering the service claims to be able to launch the relics or ashes of the deceased into space via satellite, with prices ranging from as little as 666 yuan to as high as 300,000 yuan.
Cutting-edge technology has penetrated into the funeral industry, and the opinions are divided into two factions, one supports innovative, civilized and environmentally friendly ancestor worship, and the other side cannot accept the transformation of folk traditions by science and technology, and even thinks that it is a "gimmick"
The metaverse enters the funeral industry and virtual sacrifices are on the rise
Remember the Douyin special effects that touched the whole network some time ago? Providing a photo can make the people above move, and many netizens have generated photos of deceased relatives into dynamic images, and tears flow from laughter.
Speeding technology is not only transforming industry and productivity, but also playing its warm side. Nowadays, some people have applied artificial intelligence, virtual reality and other technical means to the funeral industry, pulling in the distance between the living and the deceased, reducing the pain of parting, and providing a more interactive way of remembrance.
On the eve of the Qingming Festival, Anxian Garden, a cemetery in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, held a special memorial ceremony. In a holographic exhibition hall of about 200 square meters in Anxianyuan Cultural Square, the lives and photos of three deceased elderly people are presented one after another. Different from previous burial ceremonies, An Xianyuan uses AI restoration technology to restore photos and videos of a deceased person into videos. On screen, the deceased old man smiles, giving relief to see off his mother's son.
The person in charge of An Xianyuan said that the use of artificial intelligence and sound cloning and other technologies can fully restore the images of the deceased. On this basis, combined with AR (augmented reality) technology, families can wear AR glasses to retrieve images in the future and "reunite" with their deceased relatives at any time.
With the help of AR technology, families "reunite" with deceased loved ones
In addition, the mausoleum has established a metaverse virtual remembrance community, which is an online system that supports real-time viewing of the memorial hall of the mausoleum, the cemetery of loved ones, and in the future, family members can conduct virtual worship online.
Online ritual cleaning has been a trend in recent years. This year's Qingming Festival, Beijing, Shenzhen, Dalian, Changsha and other places have provided "cloud festival sweeping" network channels to promote family memorials and green ecological memorials. In addition, some network platforms provide services such as creating virtual memorials and uploading real memorials, supporting users to worship green and commemorate civilization through the Internet at any time.
The rise of online memorial has caught up with the maturity of meta-universe and AI technology, and the form of memorial has begun to break through tradition. In addition to Anxian Garden, there are funeral institutions such as Fushouyuan to test the concept of metaverse, and some cemetery operators have established online virtual worlds to provide cloud memorial services. For example, Fushouyuan has developed cloud obituaries, cloud photo albums, and even life deeds and micro-movies, etc. have been designed into online products. Some platforms have developed online 3D virtual memorials to digitize the deceased's items and restore holograms of the deceased through holographic projection, AR and other technologies.
The physical park corresponding to Fushouyuan Digital Cemetery
If metaverse-related technologies provide people with more realistic and immersive worship scenes, artificial intelligence plays a specialty in "resurrecting" the deceased.
Last October, in a show, the late Steve Jobs, the late Apple co-founder of the year, "came back from the dead" as a guest in a 20-minute conversation with Joe Rogan, a well-known American podcast host. In the show, Jobs discussed religion, Apple products, work creeds, and more. Everything looked normal, as if Jobs never left.
This interview was generated through AIGC, and by feeding the big model a biography of Jobs and all the recordings about him on the Internet, it finally presented a fake Jobs to the outside world.
The metaverse is not enough "space burial" is also coming
When hard technologies such as AI and virtual reality infiltrated the soft traditional culture of life and death, onlookers had mixed opinions.
Some believe that metaverse memorials are an innovative way to bring people closer to their loved ones and friends who have passed away and leave a digital legacy for the deceased. But there are also objections that claim, "It feels strange and hard to accept." "They think that worshipping or interacting with the deceased in the metaverse is absurd and awkward.
Previously, a South Korean mother spent a lot of money to create a virtual avatar for her deceased daughter, and used VR equipment to briefly reunite with her daughter in virtual space. When the documentary video touched the whole network, some people worried that when the living indulged in virtual deceased relatives, it was likely to cause an escape mentality that did not want to face reality
Korean mother reunited with "daughter" in virtual space
There is a classic line in the cartoon "Coco", real death is completely forgotten. In the film, people will enter the world of the dead after death, and they will not really die until they are forgotten by all living people. Nowadays, the distance between "yin and yang" seems not so far away with the blessing of technology.
After all, we enter the digital age, each individual's "digital heritage" is quite rich, computers, mobile phones and social media, everyone left a large amount of data including text, voice, photos, videos, etc., these data contain individual expression habits, personality characteristics and so on.
If a large model with extraordinary capabilities like GPT-4 is used to learn these data, it is not impossible to create another "me". There is a view that when everyone has a digital doppelganger, digital immortality becomes possible.
At present, it is difficult to consider people's acceptance of metaverse worship, and at this time, a high-sounding "space burial" service has also arrived.
On April 4, Wish Space's "Space Wish" launched the "China Space Burial - Star Burial" service on the Taobao Live platform, which, as the name suggests, is a form of burial by launching the relics or ashes of the deceased into space. According to reports, space burial is divided into electronic space burial and physical space burial. Photos and videos of the deceased were posted to the satellite for 666 yuan and 1666 yuan respectively. The price of physical star burial is higher, according to the size of the "star box", the price ranges from 50,000 yuan to 300,000 yuan.
Star burial form and price published by Space Wish
The project's flyer shows that buyers can witness the launch process live or visit the satellite launch site. After the satellite is launched, relatives and friends can communicate with the satellite online through the official account to conduct virtual sacrifices. After the contract is signed, the company will inform the buyer of the satellite model, launch time and other information. Items are launched within a year.
For space burial, netizens are also diverse, some think that this is a "gimmick", "cutting leeks", and some people say that space burial has a certain market, after all, many people's dream is to go to space, living is not realized, can be "sent" by relatives after death.
In the age of technology, the most traditional funeral and memorial methods are quietly changing, and perhaps the appropriate application of technology can soothe the suffering of the living in the face of the loss of relatives and friends. But if virtual cemeteries and digital offerings in the virtual space are more expensive than the real world, you should be careful that someone wants to "ga" your wallet.