“ I used to drive west, now I drive west.
Recently, a video was posted online.
A drone disguised as a dragonfly, tied to the dolls of a deceased old man, slowly rises into the air. An AI-synthesized sound is heard in the cockpit: Dad knows enough.
Many people who watched it for the first time were stunned and commented in the comments section:
The Buddha is also keeping up with the times, not flying hard on his own.
Low-level economy + silver development economy + burial industry + AI application, accounting for four windpools.
It's the only way to live a long life and be happy. Otherwise, laughing out loud on the scene will be hit.
Are you ready for the flight of the Buddha?
After laughing again, it's not just a joke. Since this year, there have been incidents of drones hanging coffins, drones burning pigs in graves, civil administrations using drones to organise sea burials, forestry stations using drones to shout out fires over graveyards.
01.
While Sendai is flying, someone is counting.
This is the first time I've ever seen a cybercrime.
The technology used is more sophisticated: multi-channel drones do loading, convoy flights, loudspeakers are responsible for placing audio, AI uses live recordings to synthesize goodbye.
The price has also been heard. According to the offers circulated online, the basic services can be up to 5,000 yuan, and the twin teams can add a complete set of layouts to more than 10,000 yuan. The equipment can be used repeatedly, as long as the locals accept, the profit of this customized business is quite considerable.
The controversy was also direct. Some people felt that it was new, that it was well-intentioned, that it added to the regret with technology; others did not accept it, that the DJ soundtrack and special performances were solemnly obliterated. There was also a genuine question from netizens: Is it because the original version paid for the DJ version?
The difference is that technology can do what people are willing to accept, and there is still a long way to go.
AI synthesizing the voice of the deceased is especially worth thinking about. Now there are many funeral services companies that are doing digital resurrections: making the dead's photos move, opening up the conversation, saying goodbye to family and friends at funerals.
02.
467 kilograms of coffins, hard to overthrow villages in the mountains
If Sendai Buddha is still alive and well, what happened in Guizhou in March of this year is completely forced out of reality.
In a mountain village, an old man died and was buried on a mountain according to local custom. The coffin weighed 467 kg, and it rained for nine days, the mountain paths were narrow and slippery. In the local area, the coffin landed in the middle of nowhere, and the family worried that the coffin would fall. Finally, the owner asked for a modified six-axis industrial drone to hang the coffin directly into the mountain.
After the video was posted online, it quickly spread, and the jokes of the netizens have a more visual feel.
One of the most widely circulated statements is that he hadn't been on an airplane for a long time, and went on to become the first person in the village to ride a drone.
However, for the mountainous area of Yunhui, this practice was not new. A drone transport worker, Mr. Liu, said that his drones were not used to transport coffins, and later such orders slowly increased. The reason is simple: there are many mountains here, and many villages can't open road cars, making it harder to walk in the rain.
Some netizens say that dozens of people folded their coffins for most of the day to carry the coffin to the top of the hill when they buried the bride. Others say that when grandmother died, seven or eight people were tired of carrying a coffin lid.
After all, the problem is in people's hands.
In the old days the villagers cried out, and there were ten great men; and now the young men were working in the cities, and there were many old men, women, and children in the villages. The coffins were to be carried by eight men, and eight men to be replaced, and many villages were in disarray.
People don't count. Although people don't charge money for their help, there is no shortage of cigarettes, red bags, and wine chairs, and there is something else to do in other people's homes. Many people feel that the hardest part is the burden of compassion, and sadness is behind.
So drones can climb to the top, relying on a few practical advantages: running straight, without any geographical restrictions; those who carry coffins do not have to risk falling; no need to ask for help, one or two pilots are enough.
As for the price, some netizens say hanging 8,000 yuan at a time, some say more than 10,000 yuan. One blogger commented that 8,000 is too expensive, almost 2,000, resulting in hundreds of rebuttals overnight, and some say 2,000 calls are not enough.
Both sides are right, because the situation would have been different. In the plains, it is stable and inexpensive to use a trailer, and drones are really irreplaceable, there are no roads, only slopes in the mountains.
The objections of the old generation are not difficult to understand. In their opinion, people carry coffins, send their children away, make machines to replace them, coffins fly in the sky, people chase after them, as if they didn't respect the dead.
But there is a problem that will not go away: if no one in the village can move the coffin, keeping the old rules, the cost will finally be borne by the living.
03.
It's the grassroots government that really uses drones in the funeral industry.
As the population ages, the workforce shrinks and traditional burial customs overlap, drones are entering a highly sensitive, low-fault lifestyle scenario.
At a time when netizens are still arguing about whether or not drones should be carried, civil authorities and forestry stations in some places have made drones a daily tool. This part of the news is not very hot, but it is a solid change in the industry.
On 18th, 19th and 21st of June this year, the 30th collective public sea funeral was held, buriing 138 ashes and 303 family members. The biggest difference from before was the use of drones.
The process was as follows: the family put the ashes in an environmental protection bag with a decomposable landing gear, took a bus to the observation area on the shore of the Bay of Pyongyang, and watched live through the big screen. Staff put the ashes in a special tank of drones, each fitted with eight pieces, two drones flown in batches over a designated area of the sea, opened the gates, and the ashes bags hung in white landing gear fell into the sea.
In the past, maritime funerals had to be carried out by boat out to sea, and it was common for family boatmen to vomit. Now people on the shore can finish their farewell, ashes bags, landing pots, and flowers can all be dropped off. The entire event is free, and you can also claim 700 yuan for a subsidy for maritime funerals online through a small program.
In the West Lake district of Hangzhou, drones are responsible for regulatory tasks.
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) automatically took off from the cockpit on the top floor of the police station, climbed to 120 meters, cruised on a predetermined route and returned 15 minutes later, captured in real-time and transmitted back to the West Lake Yunnan flight control platform, where it was automatically matched by AI models, identifying irregularly constructed graves.
The effect was also clear: detecting seven traditional concentrated burial sites for leaks and leaks; three-dimensional modeling of eight cemeteries and two forest pilot sites, setting up electronic fences; detecting 105 cases of suspected violations, finding a tea-building tomb, deforestation, and demolishing 36 empty tombs.
The Hubei State Audit Bureau is also conducting drone surveys of cemeteries, constructing 3D models of real-world landscapes, superimposing ecological protection red lines and year-round satellite imagery to make comparisons, specializing in over-scale construction, illegal occupation of farmland and forestry.
Firefighting was another important scene. In the early hours of the morning, a forestry station in Kaohsiung Prefecture discovered a fire in the Bay Cemetery in the city of Shenzhen by video surveillance, and immediately called drones to the scene. The drones confirmed that it was caused by graffiti people, urged each other to extinguish the fire by means of an airborne loudspeaker.
Data released by a renowned drone company is even more extensive: Sichuan Autonomous Region conducted more than 1,200 forest firefighting flights in a quarter, identified more than 300 smoke and fire hazards points, conducted 114 flights between April 3 and 6 during the Qing Dynasty, conducted screaming patrols in cemeteries such as Yangtze Cemetery, planned 40 firefighting routes in Wuhan's East Lake High Zone, conducted 1,040 flights, issued more than 30 fire precautions, and assisted in evacuating more than 20 traffic jams; Shenzhen Fukushima conducted more than 60,000 flights to 14 cemeteries, detected three unlawful fires, and managed to respond within one minute, three minutes, and five minutes.
There are more than 200 burial facilities in the state, burning about 60,000 of them annually, and more than 500,000 daily visits at peak times. The report envisages a total investment of about 450,000 yuan in an unmanned system for the ecological gardens in Phnom Penh, which can theoretically be recovered in about 19 months.
Putting these cases together, we can see that the most stable buyer of drones in the funeral industry is the government department, which is doing patrol, mapping, firefighting, enforcing these specific tasks every day.
04.
The robotics industry can take a serious look at this scenario.
In addition to drones, ground-based robots are already involved.
This year it is clear that Guangdong Zhejiang has some netizens who send machine dogs to burn pigs on the mountain and send them to the graves of their ancestors. Some people use unmanned aerial vehicles to throw sacrifices on the mountains. It is more common to hang pigs on the mountain with unmanned aerial vehicles.
Outside the country, there is also a Japanese drone cremation service, where family members can view GPS coordinates on the app, wear VR glasses and virtual donations; there are AI digital resurrections, VR scans, cloud sacrifices.
The funeral industry is so positive about technology that it's realistic.
The need is certain: National Statistics Bureau data shows that in 2025, the country's death population of 11.31 million people, each family will have to go through a farewell. People are increasingly difficult to find: teachers who carry coffins, countrymen who help are decreasing.
So at the robotics fair, it's only fair to have practitioners half jokingly say: "Some humanoid robots do the trick, or they do the weird thing, put it a little twisted on the tech show, put it on the spot, it's okay". Writing, folding, messing up shows, these scenes sound out of sync, and behind the scenes reflect that many smart companies have been looking for a place to land, while the funeral industry is shortage of good people, customer prices are high, and the acceptance of new things is increasing.
But to really get inside, the threshold is higher than the one seen in the video.
Commercial flights must have a CAAC license, according to the practitioner, fly high, fly far and require a distance rating. Drones must be registered in real name, must declare airspace before flight; hanging objects, assembling flights, carrying screaming equipment, routing planning and emergency disposal capability requirements are high.
It's more difficult than qualification, it's the customs everywhere. It's the same with drone burials, some places feel economical and environmentally friendly, and some places are completely unacceptable.
It's not that ridiculous to look back and see the demon staring at the goddess.
In Mountain Village, drones lift 467 kg of coffins for the villagers; in Dong Dong Bay, it sends the families of the boats to the shore; above the cemetery, it sets fires for the rangers. These uses are not obvious, but behind each vehicle there are real needs and people who actually pay.
The purpose of burial is to rest the deceased and to reassure the living. When no one in the village can carry the coffin, and their families are impatient to drop the old man's coffin, a drone gives them another option.
Technology hasn't changed the way people feel about the dead, but perhaps it can get through the most exhausting and dangerous part of the farewell.
As for the DJ version of The Great Panic! at the Disco, it may take time to answer.