After a man in China was killed in a road accident last year, his family hired an artificial intelligence (AI) technology team to create a digital version of him to comfort his elderly mother.

The AI creation is able to chat with his octogenarian mother online and help her live with the reality of her only child’s death.

The incident was exposed by the AI team leader Zhang Zewei, who is based in eastern Jiangsu province, according to the media outlet Litchi News.

The family, who live in Shandong province, also in the eastern part of the country, is one of Zhang’s clients.

At the beginning of last year, the mother’s only child died in a traffic accident.