Featured Image Credit: 2wai
Topics: Artificial Intelligence, Black Mirror, Social Media, Technology, Weird, News, Phones
Ellie Kemp
Topics: Artificial Intelligence, Black Mirror, Social Media, Technology, Weird, News, Phones
An AI company has been slammed online over a video promoting the launch of its avatar app.
2wai, a Los Angeles based tech company, launched their social app for avatars via the Apple store on Tuesday (November 11).
It uses artificial intelligence to let users to create a HoloAvatar 'who looks and talks like you, and even shares the same memories,' as per their website.
A video posted by co-founder Calum Worthy promotes the app as a way to memorialize deceased loved ones.
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People reckon it's something straight out of a Black Mirror episode.
The social media promo has been viewed some 1.1 million times on X, formerly Twitter.
"What if the loved ones we've lost could be part of our future?" Worthy wrote alongside the video.
It shows the avatar of an elderly lady help her daughter through pregnancy via a smartphone.
The woman then 'watches' her grandson grow up and eventually forms a relationship with him.
Flashing forward to the future, the son then turns to his avatar grandma for advice on his own wife's pregnancy.
It closes on the message: "With 2wai, three minutes can last forever."
Worthy added: "At 2wai, we're building a living archive of humanity, one story at a time. It all starts with the social network for avatars: the 2wai app.
"Try the 2wai beta on the App Store. Android coming soon."
People didn't react too positively to the concept.
"This is the most evil thing I've ever seen..." one person hit out, as a second branded the concept 'vile'.
"Death and Loss is a normal part of life. You’re creating dependent and lobotomized adults by doing this. Actually vile," a third weighed in.
Imagining a hypothetical future, another responded: "‘Are you sure you want to cancel your subscription and never talk to your dead parents again?’ You are a psychopath.
"Get help. Stop building products before you really hurt someone."
UNILAD understands the app is currently free to download but features in-app purchases.
"There’s literally a Black Mirror episode about this," somebody else said, as another person added the hit show had 'already warned us' about this.
In 2013, the Channel 4 TV series, which later moved to Netflix, aired the first episode of its second season, Be Right Back.
It follows Martha (Hayley Atwell), a young woman who communicates with an AI chatbot version of her boyfriend, Ash Starmer (Domhnall Gleeson), who is killed in a car crash.
The technology is based on Ash's social media history. Martha soon gets a physical android of him, but ends up stowing it away in the attic.
She keeps it for her daughter, so she can make some kind of memories with her late father.
UNILAD has contacted 2wai for comment.