Opinion: The Case Against Resurrecting Deceased Celebrities via AI

It turns out we’ve been digitally altering stars for years​

We’ve come a long way from the days when Natalie Cole mixed together a duet with her late father, Nat King Cole, on the 1991 hit “Unforgettable” — or when Dirt Devil altered old Fred Astaire dance movie clips for 1997 commercials, digitally replacing the hat rack from 1951’s Royal Wedding with its vacuum cleaner. Now, it’s routine to see Harrison Ford, 80; Samuel L. Jackson, 74: and Robert De Niro, 79; de-aged onscreen by CG.

But other stars have been leery of how new technologies could tarnish their reputations after they’re gone. Robin Williams, who died in 2014, set up his will to bar any commercial exploitation of his likeness until at least 25 years after his death. Don’t expect an Astaire-style ad with Mork from Ork anytime soon, nor his digitally inserted performance in Good Will Hunting 2.

Not that that has stopped people from trying. A Toronto-based group supporting mental health in the music industry recently created an album of “lost tracks” by late artists like Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse and Jimi Hendrix by asking Google’s Magenta AI program to create new works based on an algorithmic breakdown of 20 to 30 archival tunes analyzed for characteristics like note choices, rhythm preferences and harmonic style.

The results are pretty uncanny, far more convincing than video deepfakes that attempt to persuade us that Ford still looks like a 30-something action hero (in the June 30 release Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny he’s CG’d in the film’s first 25 minutes).  

Most of these AI-generated recordings, including some mash-ups of existing tracks by Freddie Mercury and rapper the Notorious B.I.G., are the equivalent of fan art — with no commercial value since creators could face legal challenges from artists’ estates. The law here is still a bit murky on these AI-assisted soundalike works, as there’s no nationwide law enshrining a so-called “right of publicity.”

If AI recreations of artists turn out to be legal, are they ethical?

Even when the law is on your side and the technology is sophisticated enough to be convincing, ethical questions remain about how to honor an artist’s intent when they’re dead. Would Whitney Houston really have wanted a hologram concert version of her performances playing in Las Vegas? (The creepy show closed last year after eight months.) As the song goes, how will we know?

(Left to right) Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison of the Beatles at a press conference in Tokyo on June 29, 1966.

JIJI PRESS/AFP via Getty Images

Getting back to the Beatles…

It’s hard to imagine that John Lennon — who was famously particular about how his own songs were produced and had a famously fraught relationship with McCartney despite their decadelong musical collaboration — would just stand back as his frenemy called all the shots on one of his own unreleased demos.

Still, McCartney is working with Lennon’s actual vocals — not some AI simulation of his voice. And that demo, what Sir Paul called “a ropy little bit of cassette,” had already produced two other “new” Beatles songs, “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love,” which were released in the mid-’90s with the apparent blessing of Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono. "Nothing has been artificially or synthetically created,” McCartney said in response to the controversy over the new tune. “It’s all real and we all play on it. We cleaned up some existing recordings — a process which has gone on for years.” But nobody’s including either of those previous ghostly resuscitations on their set lists of beloved Beatles tunes — and why take a chance at diminishing the band’s legacy?

What made the Beatles fab was more than just the lyrical and melodic genius, the youthful energy, the way they captured a moment in the culture half a century ago and just ran with it. There was something ineffable about their stardom, a quality that even the most ingenious lines of coding cannot hope to emulate — let alone reproduce. Hell, several generations of human bands have tried and failed to match the originals’ achievements. Tomorrow never knows, of course, but the Beatles’ legacy may remain safe even from the likes of AI.