[The Second Take] Meeting the Deceased Through AI... Can It Help Restore Daily Life?

The Digital Persona World of "Wonderland"
A New Option for Those Left Behind
The Key Is Accepting Death... The Film Offers No Milestone

In the movie "Wonderland," the title refers to a video call service that restores the deceased using artificial intelligence (AI). It unfolds a digital persona world to help reunite families, lovers, and others.

The unfamiliar setting is not new. MBC VFX special effects team produced and presented "I Met You" in 2020. A mother was reunited with her daughter who passed away at the age of seven from blood cancer. Using 160 cameras, they performed 3D scanning to create the daughter's physical model and implemented movements through motion capture. They also recorded 800 sentences each with the voices of five children of the same age group and conducted deep learning training to reproduce the voice.

As a result, the interaction was somewhat unnatural. This was because no avatar stand-in actor was present on site, and the conversation was led by the daughter. However, the mother could not hold back her overwhelming emotions and tears. In "I Met You 2," produced the following year, a husband who reunited with his deceased wife showed no difference. The unexpected reunion was so intense that it raised concerns about causing additional difficulties for the remaining family and acquaintances.

The death of a loved one triggers sadness, loneliness, anxiety, and more. It is the greatest stress and pain experienced by those left behind. British psychologist John Bowlby classified the normal mourning process following the loss of a loved one into four stages. The first is numb shock, the second is longing accompanied by various emotions, the third is depression and loss of motivation while accepting the loss, and the fourth is recovery and reconstruction of life. Depending on the individual, some stages may be skipped or repeated, but generally, it takes two to four months.

For those left behind, interaction through AI restoration is certainly a new option. However, reunions with the deceased can potentially provoke extreme reactions. Whether AI will serve as a positive medium that promotes a normal mourning process or become an obstacle that reproduces and amplifies painful memories, hindering recovery to daily life, can only be judged by observing more cases.

Unfortunately, "Wonderland" fails to provide any milestone insights on this matter. It presents two major cases: one where the digital persona is the protagonist, and another where the story unfolds artificially. There is hardly any case that helps those in grief pass through the mourning process. Those who develop and operate Wonderland are also focused on inducing reunions and stabilizing the system.

What we need now is the possibility of AI being utilized on-site as a new mourner crisis intervener or as an auxiliary tool. The key is how to position memories of the deceased within the past tense. There are still many anxieties and concerns that must be faced and resolved before rushing into contrived stories.