South Korean Man Uses AI Video to Deliver Message from Late Grandfather to His Father

A 28-year-old South Korean office worker hired Seoul-based company Vaice in December to create an AI-animated video of his late grandfather delivering a message to his father. The digital likeness called the father “my most precious son” and apologized for making him help with farm work as a child and for opposing his decision to become a hairstylist.

Lee Geon Hui wrote the script based on what he wanted to tell his father.

His father shed tears after watching the video. Lee’s grandfather died in a car accident before Lee was born. Fortune reported that Lee felt his father regretted not showing the grandfather that he had become a hairstylist and had a son.

“My father said he wouldn’t watch the video. But then he did, and he shed tears. So I felt rewarded,” Lee said in a recent interview. Vaice CEO Jeongu Won stated that the company serves about 300 customers a month, mainly people in their 40s or 50s seeking videos of late parents.

A basic three-to-five-minute video costs 600,000 won ($390) and requires a few photos and short voice samples of the deceased. Many customers play the videos during family memorial rituals or major Korean holidays, and most include the words “I love you” in scripts they write themselves. JL Standard launched a similar AI grief service five years ago.

Company executive Choi Yu Ha stated that acceptance of the technology is spreading, aided by simulated appearances of dead celebrities on TV. Technological advances now allow replication of wrinkles and skin pores in remarkable detail, Choi said. Yong Man Ro, an AI expert at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, made a one-minute AI video of his own parents after both died last year and played it once at a gathering with his siblings.