The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to resurrect the renowned Brazilian singer Elis Regina for a Volkswagen car advertisement has recently generated mixed emotions.
Elis Regina Carvalho Costa's untimely death at the age of 36 in 1982 left Brazil mourning. Yet, her recent appearance in a duet with her daughter Maria Rita singing the anthem "Como Nossos Pais", stirred nostalgia among millions of Brazilians. However, the AI-created adverts also sparked a passionate debate about the ethics of using AI and the impact it may have on different industries and, obviously, on society.
The commercial, produced to celebrate Volkswagen's 70th birthday in Brazil, involved over 2,400 hours of AI processing to create Elis Regina's performance alongside her daughter.
Volkswagen claimed it obtained the approval of Elis Regina's family for this production and her eldest son, João Marcello Bôscoli, also applauded the campaign for provoking a meaningful dialogue and revealing the emotional and artistic potential of AI. But some critics highlighted Elis Regina's outspoken opposition to Brazil's military dictatorship, which makes her association with a company like Volkswagen, known for its collaboration with the regime, contentious. Consequently, Brazil's advertising watchdog, Conar, launched an investigation into the potential breach of ethical standards.
Yet the episode makes you think: the use of AI to digitally revive a deceased person on screen is raising concerns about blurring the lines between fiction and reality at the moment, but in the past we have already seen similar exercises recreated in films via CGI (remember the CGI renditions of Grand Moff Tarkin and Princess Leia in Star Wars movie Rogue One?). Besides, also in the history of music there have been duets featuring contemporary performers alongside deceased artists, mainly achieved through the use of archival footage. Yet AI is radically changing the game.
In January several celebrities were recreated with AI for the series "Deep Fake Neighbour Wars" on ITV and at the time we wondered which late fashion designers may be brought back to life in future.
Elis Regina's advert pushes things further and shows us that, as the technology progresses, it is just a matter of time before we may see a late designer being resurrected for advertising purposes.
Bets are high on those designers who died several decades ago, from Christian Dior to Gianni Versace (no need to see Karl Lagerfeld brought back to life now as he died relatively recently and resurrecting Alexander McQueen would be inappropriate). Will we see also late models à la Gia Carangi being resurrected? Who knows.
Yet, apart from adverts there may be another reason to give some designers a second life through AI: quite a few historical fashion houses such as Poiret and Patou were relaunched in the last few years.
Maybe in future we may have an AI-generated version of their original fashion designer being used as the face of the label as a sort of virtual Creative Director, and an anonymous team actually doing the work behind the scenes. Could this could be a solution for Walter Albini's fashion house, for example?
In much the same ways artists could be resurrected via AI to guide us through museums and show us their works. Will Mariano Fortuny's AI ghost be inhabiting his palazzo in Venice, revealing visitors the secrets behind his exquisite patterns, motifs, prints and luxurious fabrics? Time will tell, but anything is possible now, as proved by the images of Christian Dior, Gianni Versace, Walter Albini and Mariano Fortuny illustrating this post, all of them quickly generated using Midjourney.
Would this be ethical? Probably not. Is it a desperate necessity? Not really, but fashion is always on the lookout for new ways to reach out to consumers and museums are desperate for visitors and the interest generated by the Volkswagen advert may be tempting for the fashion and arts industries.
Elis Regina's Volkswagen commercial has indeed gained immense popularity since its release, amassing over 28 million views on YouTube at the time of writing this post. Besides, her music has been streamed over 20 million times since the campaign's launch, introducing her to new generations of music fans. These impressive numbers might serve as persuasive evidence for a fashion house to consider resurrecting a deceased fashion designer or for a museum to revive an artist using the enchantment of AI. Who do you think they will choose?
