BEIJING, China (AFP) — After her father died from cancer, Zhang Xinyu had an artificial intelligence (AI) avatar made that looks and sounds just like him, part of a growing “digital human” industry that China is moving to govern more tightly.

Videos featuring AI digital humans are ubiquitous on Chinese social media, with their uncanny features and smooth, dexterous motions often used to tout products.

The nation’s cyberspace regulator issued draft rules this month on how these avatars are developed and deployed — seeking to stop them harming children, threatening social stability or being created to resemble someone without their consent.

Zhang, 47, approached the company Super Brain two years ago, feeling depressed and lonely following her bereavement.

She can now converse online with her father’s avatar, something that made her feel “fully recharged in an instant and filled with motivation once again,” she told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Some friends worried Zhang would become too immersed in the virtual world and “never be able to move on,” calling it a form of “false comfort,” she added.

“But even if the comfort itself is simulated, the love behind it is real,” said Zhang, who is based in Liaoning province.

State news agency Xinhua reported last year that the country’s digital human industry was worth around 4.1 billion yuan ($600 million) in 2024, having grown a huge 85 percent year-on-year.

Chinese governance of new digital technologies has always followed the logic of “develop first, then regulate, and perfect in the process,” said Marina Zhang, from the University of Technology Sydney.

‘Well-intentioned lie’

The regulations proposed by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) require clear labelling on digital human content.

They also prohibit using personal information to create deepfake clones of individuals without their consent.

Super Brain’s founder Zhang Zewei said he sees new laws and regulation on the sector as “inevitable.”

“I view this as a positive development, as it achieves a balance between standardized regulation and industry growth,” he told AFP.

The company specializes in creating AI avatars of the dead for grieving families.

A video clip of an elderly woman who unknowingly chatted with a hyper-realistic avatar of her dead son was widely shared on Chinese social media this month, with a related hashtag garnering over 90 million views on Weibo.

The avatar, created by Zhang’s firm, mimicked her son’s speech patterns and his movements so closely that she believed it was him on a video call.

The woman’s family approached Super Brain after her son died in a car accident, Zhang told AFP.

It was a “well-intentioned lie,” he said, adding that Super Brain always obtains consent from family members of the deceased.

The CAC regulations — open for public comment until early May — mark China’s latest attempt to balance its technology ambitions with preventing unfettered development that could prove risky.

Violations will be punished in accordance with the law, with potential fines of 10,000 yuan ($1,460) to 200,000 yuan ($29,300), the CAC said.

Previously, the CAC has clamped down on the use of AI-generated deepfakes that impersonate public figures in e-commerce livestreams, which it said “severely damaged” the online ecosystem.