Deepfakes of your dead loved ones are a booming Chinese business

Deepfakes of your dead loved ones are a booming Chinese business

In Chinese homes, it’s common to put up a portrait of a deceased relative for a few years after the death. Zhang Zewei, founder of a Shanghai-based company called Super Brain, says he and his team wanted to revamp that tradition with an “AI photo frame.” They create avatars of deceased loved ones that are pre-loaded onto an Android tablet, which looks like a photo frame when standing up. Clients can choose a moving image that speaks words drawn from an offline database or from an LLM. 

“In its essence, it’s not much different from a traditional portrait, except that

Read More

My in-laws won’t tell me where they’re keeping my dead husband’s money

My in-laws won’t tell me where they’re keeping my dead husband’s money

Pay Dirt is Slate’s money advice column. Have a question? Send it to Lillian, Athena, and Elizabeth here(It’s anonymous!)

Dear Pay Dirt,

My (40F) husband died by suicide when our son was a baby. Now my son is almost 5, and I’ve been raising him alone all that time. My husband had a substantial life insurance policy, which has allowed me to stay home with my son, and due to the fact that he’s disabled, that has been a blessing. However, the money won’t last forever. My husband also had a substantial amount of money in his bank

Read More