After FaceApp took internet by the storm, cops in China used the AI technology developed and designed tech and internet services giant Tencent to find and reunite a young man who was kidnapped as a toddler after 2 decades.
The video footage of the reunion of Yu Weifeng, 21 walking into a press conference and meeting his biological parents for the first time after 18 years went viral. The video shows parents of Weifeng burst into tears of joy and hugging him.
After the police was able to predict with high accuracy what the missing boy might look like using the AI technology, they spent over 2 months sorting through nearly 100 candidates before singling our Weifeng who is a student in the provincial capital.
Guangzhou.
Investigator Zheng Zhenhai said: “When he found him, he refused to believe that he was a kidnapped child, but DNA confirmed that he was a match with his biological parents.”
Weifeng, whose adoptive parents had given him the family name Li, went missing on 6 May 2001 while playing near a construction site where his dad worked as a foreman.
Zheng added: “We opened the case the day after the incident, and we never gave up. Technology was limited at the time. We checked surveillance footage, but there were simply too many people coming in and out of the area.”
At the press conference, the police officials also presented a number of missing persons posters that they had printed, which showed having offered rewards of up to 100,000 RMB (£11,600) for information.
Weifeng’s father said, “We’re also very grateful to his foster parents for raising him for 18 years. From now on, his foster father will become like a brother to me; my son will have two dads.”
Well a brilliant use of technology indeed!
