Project to Resurrect Dead Grandmas Sparks Controversy

If a stranger told you there’s a chance your Grandma could live forever, would you take it?

It may seem like an odd question, but it’s one which AI company 2wai is staking its entire existence on. As spotted by The Independent, a recently released commercial for 2wai, titled “Preserve Your Legacy,” has gone viral, thanks to its depiction of a grandmother preserved as an AI avatar.

“He’s getting bigger, see?” a pregnant mother tells her presumably dead mom, who appears as an AI character on her phone. “Oh honey, that’s wonderful!” the AI responds. “He’s listening — put your hand on your tummy and hum to him. You used to love that.”

The ad is basically showing off 2wai’s core product, a HoloAvatar, which is exactly as dystopian as it sounds. According to the company, HoloAvatars are AI renditions of real-life people, brought to life via a large language model. People weren’t impressed with the idea, to say the least.

“We are going to make what you’re doing illegal,” one viewer commented. “Missed the part where the ‘grandmother’ stops working and tells them to upgrade to the premium version to continue the conversation,” another quipped.

2wai | Preserve Your Legacy

Though this particular ad shows off HoloAvatars as a way to preserve your loved ones after they pass, that’s just one use case. Others, the company says, include AI approximations of fictional characters, historical figures, celebrities, and even “digital twins,” which are billed as a HoloAvatar who “looks and talks like you, and even shares the same memories!”

“With the magic of AI, 2wai lets anyone talk to their favorite creators, brands, and characters in a virtual world that feels real,” the company’s website exclaims. “Is one of you really enough?”

2wai was founded by Mason Geyser and Disney child star Calum Worthy. According to The Independent, which spoke with Geyser, the grandma ad was designed to tick people off, following the footsteps of AI hardware company, Friend.

“I actually give a lot of props to Calum because we’ve put out a lot of different social media content over the last six months of trying to promote the platform, and he really had this idea that: What if we went with a little bit more of a controversial idea?” the CEO told the publication. “And we tried to spark this kind of online debate between the two sides, and he really did such a great job with sparking that controversy and getting it out there.”

Asked whether he would use his own product to preserve his loved ones, Geyser said that he sees it “more as a way to just kind of pass on some of those really good memories that I had with my grandparents.”

So there you have it: if you ever wanted a way to poison the memory of your loved ones with an uncanny replicant, this is the product for you.

More on death: You Will Never Guess What This Startup Is Turning Human Remains Into