AI is bringing dead celebrities back to life.. but is that a good thing?
According to Kristen Ruby, CEO and Founder of Ruby Media Group, "Realistic digital replicas will soon be so good that you won’t know if you are listening to a celebrity or a dupe. In the near future, real media will become virtually indistinguishable from synthetic media, making it difficult to ascertain authentic media from duplicate media created with Artificial Intelligence. This actually erodes someone’s legacy instead of preserving it."
Ruby is less convinced that celebrities from decades before will continue to draw interest for younger generations.
"Upcoming generations are more interested in seeing themselves as the star than with worshiping someone else as one," she explained.
“This is a seismic shift that has been precipitated by the influencer marketing industry, which has eaten into the traditional Hollywood celebrity appeal. Growing up, popular magazines used to run features that said, ‘stars, they are just like us.’ Now, a lot of that has been replaced with influencer brand endorsement deals. People want to be more like influencers than celebrities."
"We will have less movie stars and more social media stars. That is the future," she added.
There’s always the possibility that a fan could disapprove of a family or estate’s usage of the celebrity’s likeness and take legal action, but Ruby doesn’t see a future where that’s a regular occurrence.
"This is America – anyone can try to sue for anything. But it’s hard to imagine a judge saying the fans had standing to sue anyone," she said.
Ruby agrees that a celebrity must be on top of their contract game to protect their likeness, and even then, it’s no guarantee.
"If a celebrity signed away the rights to their image to someone who wants to use it to make AI generated pornography, unfortunately, they are no longer able to influence the decision if they are deceased. This is why a celebrity must clearly stipulate all creative parameters including use of new technology while they are still alive to account for all options."
