There has been heavy online backlash this December after "AI educator" Min Choi posted a series of fake images to X (formerly Twitter) depicting living celebrities interacting with dead family members and friends, Sky News reported.
The images included pictures of Bindi Irwin with her deceased father Steve Irwin, the late Princess Diana with sons Prince Harry and Prince William, Paul McCartney of the Beatles with his late bandmate John Lennon, Beyonce with Michael Jackson, Dolly Parton with Elvis Presley, and Christian Bale with Heath Ledger.
Choi touted the fake images as a demonstration of AI image model Grok-2's capabilities, which he said could "generate photorealistic people right now," per Sky News.
But while some might see the AI-generated photos as entertainment, the problem with this approach was immediately apparent to many viewers.
"Extremely disrespectful and distasteful," said one commenter.
"Why does anyone need this?" demanded another user.
A third commenter called the images "absolutely f******* ghoulish."
Many others called for the AI-generated photos to be removed, Sky News revealed.
Obviously, emotions will run high when discussing deceased figures — especially when an advertiser chooses to exploit the emotional and fraught connection between those departed individuals and their living loved ones to sell a software gimmick. But there is more to criticize here than just the tastelessness and greed on display.
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Generative AI — the type of AI software that scrapes online content without the creators' permission to power image generators, chatbots, and other faux-creative applications — is a massive drain on the world's resources. Just training an AI like Chat-GPT takes hundreds of thousands of gallons of water, and it continues to consume more water for cooling every time it's used while also devouring an amount of electricity that researchers estimate will soon rival the power usage of Japan.
While researchers are hard at work on ways to reduce that impact, for now, the numbers are clear: frivolous AI use is damaging to the environment. And Min Choi's outrageous advertising tactic is a terrible reason for that much waste.
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