{"id":2710,"date":"2026-07-03T05:40:39","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T05:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2710"},"modified":"2026-07-03T05:40:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T05:40:39","slug":"ai-grief-videos-turn-mourning-into-a-390-service-in-south-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2710","title":{"rendered":"AI \u201cgrief videos\u201d turn mourning into a $390 service in South Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lee wrote a message and hired the Seoul-based tech company Vaice in December to make a short video clip showing a digital likeness of his grandfather delivering it. The virtual character called his father \u201cmy most precious son,\u201d and apologized for making him help with farm work when he was a child and for opposing his son\u2019s decision to become a hairstylist.<\/p>\n

Read more India and Japan just made \u201ceconomic security\u201d a shared mission<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMy father said he wouldn\u2019t watch the video. But then he did, and he shed tears. So I felt rewarded,\u201d Lee, a 28-year-old office worker, said in a recent interview. \u201cI wrote the script \u2026 as it was what I actually wanted to tell my father.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A growing number of digitally-savvy\u00a0South Koreans\u00a0are experimenting with AI\u2019s ability to produce video recreations of the dead: a number of startups offering videos featuring\u00a0AI-produced recreations\u00a0of loved ones, while TV shows have featured AI versions of dead pop stars and actors.<\/p>\n

This emerging industry is causing both hopes and worries. Some say the practice can comfort grieving people, but others say it raises thorny ethical, psychological and legal questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a double-edged sword, as it deals with human emotions,\u201d said Yong Man Ro, an AI expert at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. \u201cAs AI technologies become part of people\u2019s lives, they can also bring about cultural experiences and shocks that we have never experienced.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many clients want AI versions of their late parents<\/h4>\n

Vaice\u2019s CEO, Jeongu Won, said his company serves about 300 customers a month, mainly people in their 40s or 50s who want videos of their late parents. Others request videos of late grandparents as gifts for their own parents.<\/p>\n

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Won said his company needs a few photos and short voice samples of the deceased to make a likeness. A basic three-to-five-minute video costs 600,000 won ($390), he said.<\/p>\n

Many customers play those AI videos when their family members get together for memorial rituals for their loved ones or major Korean holidays, said Won, adding that his clients typically write scripts. Won said most customers add the words \u201cI love you,\u201d and some reference regrets over unresolved conflicts with their late parents and hopes to overcome them.<\/p>\n

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Lee\u2019s grandfather died unexpectedly in a car accident before he was born, and Lee said he felt his father regretted he wasn\u2019t able to show his grandfather that he was doing well as a hairstylist and that he has a son.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI don\u2019t know much about my grandfather. But when I saw tears running down my father\u2019s face, I felt a bit emotional as I realized my father still misses him,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n

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AI grief tech triggers worries about ethical issues<\/h4>\n

When JL Standard launched a similar service five years ago, said company executive Choi Yu Ha, it was met with suspicion from some bereaved target customers who feared it would open up their grief. But acceptance of AI grief technology is spreading, helped by dead celebrities making simulated appearances on TV.<\/p>\n

Won says he hasn\u2019t heard from any customers who said his product made their grief harder to bear.<\/p>\n

Read more Russia\u2019s economy is \u2018sputtering,\u2019 and Putin\u2019s wartime spending model has pushed the country to an \u2018economic, political, and military abyss\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

But observers warn that simulating the dead raises ethical questions, and could put some vulnerable people at risk if it blurs the line between reality and the virtual world.<\/p>\n

Choung Wan, an emeritus professor at Seoul\u2019s Kyung Hee University Law School, said laws are urgently needed to protect the dignity and other rights of the deceased. They should ban the creation of an AI-generated version of a dead person if the person opposed it before their death, he said, and put clear limits on commercial use of people\u2019s images and voices.<\/p>\n

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Questions could grow more complicated as the technology develops<\/h4>\n

Experts say the ethical issues could be much harder to manage as they look ahead to the possibility of so-called \u201cgriefbots\u201d or \u201cdeathbots,\u201d which simulate two-way conversations between bereaved people and AI versions of dead loved ones. Startups are already\u00a0experimenting with such products.<\/p>\n

\u201cPsychologically, a healthy mourning involves a process to acknowledge the absence of the deceased and pass through the pains of their losses,\u201d Choung said. \u201cBut speaking with an AI system simulating a living person could undermine the process of accepting deaths and rather cause a negative effect of leaving bereaved families trapped in a fantasy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Won said he\u2019s cautious about launching an AI chatbot service because real-time conversations with people could not be supervised by company officials and may cause unexpected ethical problems.<\/p>\n

Still, both the technology and acceptance of it are moving quickly.<\/p>\n

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Choi said technological advances make it possible to replicate even the wrinkles and skin pores of a deceased person in remarkable detail, and that customers now say their loved ones\u2019 AI likenesses really look like them.<\/p>\n

Ro said interactive chatbots have technological hurdles to overcome, such as a mismatch between their verbal comments and their facial expressions. They also tend to seem less human when conversations get longer.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSome people ask why we can\u2019t have an hour-long conversation with chatbots, though we can talk with them for five minutes. There are efforts to develop the technology to make an hour-long conversation possible,\u201d Ro said.<\/p>\n

Ro said he made a one-minute video with AI likenesses of his own parents after they both died last year and played it at a gathering with his siblings. When the family saw digital versions of their parents saying \u201cDon\u2019t worry\u201d and \u201cTake care,\u201d they were all very moved.<\/p>\n

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But Ro said he and his siblings didn\u2019t watch it again. \u201cOne time was enough to watch it to honor our late parents who were quite elderly. We moved on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Read more No holiday for New York City cops, who get a heat wave, World Cup and a Taylor Swift wedding at MSG<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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