Former Disney Star's AI App Sparks Controversy Over Digital Resurrection of Deceased Loved Ones

This AI app lets you chat with the dead using a few minutes of video - and not everyone is okay with that

2wai pitches "digital immortality" but makes many people uncomfortable Former Disney Channel star Calum Worthy has more lately been exploring AI as co-founder of a startup called called 2wai (pronounced "too why") that can produce AI-powered facsimiles of people using just a few minutes of video and some details about their personality. But a commercial promoted by Worthy for his company has some in a tizzy over the idea of the app enabling users to talk to deceased loved ones. The ad features a young, pregnant woman chatting over video with her mother. In a montage showing the baby growing up, the grandmother doesn't seem to age as she continues to give advice. It's only in the final moments that viewers learn the grandma in question is a synthetic avatar, born from a three-minute video recording. Cue the horror in the responses to Worthy's post. Obvious Black Mirror comparisons and exaggerated calls to stop necromancy sit alongside plenty of more nuanced and serious concerns about privacy and how using 2wai this way might affect the grieving process. But there's more to 2wai than grief-themed viral marketing. The app, developed by Worthy and founder Russell Geyser, aims to be a kind of social network for avatars. Not only can users record themselves or others for posthumous interaction - they can also engage with AI recreations of historical icons, use chatbots for cooking and travel tips, or hang out with Worthy's own digitized self. The company describes this all as a "living archive of humanity," but in practice, it lands somewhere between a digital diary and an educational simulator. You can get advice from Florence Nightingale, plan a picnic with King Henry VIII, or upload your own likeness to chat with your descendants long after you're gone. The app's pitch is sentimental, but the public's response suggests the average person isn't quite ready to upload their dead relatives to the App Store maelstrom Immortalizing yourself to preserve your voice for future generations sounds poetic, until you realize it's also creating a simulation of you that you can't actually control once you're gone. If your AI twin starts acting in ways you never would, who's accountable? And what if it's done without you ever knowing? 2wai could open a Pandora's box of what consent, memory, and digital identity even mean. 2wai isn't the first to dabble in AI resurrection. Companies like Replika and HereAfter have explored digital companionship and memory preservation for years. They face similar questions about the business model. While the app is available for free right now, one has to assume there will be a subscription or something else for the service. Do families pay to keep grandma's avatar active past a trial period? The tension between sentiment and commerce is an ethical maelstom. The average person might not object to a chatbot that helps them pick a pasta sauce. But bring in their late mother, or their childhood pet, or a historical figure now repackaged for profit, and things get murky. Still, 2wai offers a kind of digital life raft. For a parent who wants their voice to outlast them, the pitch might be hard to resist, even if they are smart enough to understand the avatar is not them, and not in any way actually sentient or self-aware. For now, 2wai is very real and very live. You can download it, record yourself, and leave behind a version of your personality for your great-grandkids or random internet strangers to engage with. Whether that future is comforting, commercial, or something closer to uncanny valley horror will be revealed in time. And it will be up to us to decide. Or maybe up to our avatars. You can see the full ad below.

Ex-Disney star ripped for 'demonic' app that lets users talk to AI...

An app launched by a former Disney star that lets users speak with AI versions of their dead relatives drew jeers online, with social media users calling the tech "vile," "demonic" and reminiscent of the dystopian sci-fi show "Black Mirror." Calum Worthy, a Canadian actor known for Disney's 2011-2016 "Austin & Ally," posted an ad for his app 2wai last week on X. The clip quickly racked up more than 40 million views -- and dozens of comments calling for the app to be taken down. "This is one of the most vile things I've seen in my life," one user wrote on X. In the video, a pregnant woman uses 2wai to talk to an avatar of her dead mother. Years later, the baby she was pregnant with - now a 10-year-old boy - talks to the bot on his walk home from school. Eventually the youth - now 30 and played by Worthy - tells the avatar that she is going to be a great-grandmother. "With 2wai, three minutes can last forever," the commercial says, claiming that just three minutes of footage can be used to create lifelike AI avatars of friends and family members. The app is free to download on the Apple store, and coming soon to Android. It also offers premium features for a fee. Critics blasted the app as dangerous and exploitative, arguing it could do serious mental harm to grieving people. "'Are you sure you want to cancel your subscription and never talk to your dead parents again?'" one social media user wrote in a post. "You are a psychopath. Get help. Stop building products before you really hurt someone." "Death and Loss is a normal part of life. You're creating dependent and lobotomized adults by doing this," another user wrote. "Actually vile." Some users shared concerns that the app's avatars - "capable of real-time conversation" with "realistic movements and lip-synchronized speech" - could push users into psychosis or lead them to commit suicide. Yet another blasted the company: "Demonic, dishonest, and dehumanizing. If I die and you put words in my mouth I will curse you for all eternity. My value dies with me. I'm not a f-king avatar." A different person posted a "Family Guy" meme showing the character Peter Griffin lounging in a chair and using a TV remote with the caption: "ah sweet man-made horrors beyond my comprehension." Some critics said the app seemed like it came straight out of popular Netflix series "Black Mirror." "This was LITERALLY a 'Black Mirror' episode, like, I hate when people say that but it is quite specifically season 2 episode 1," one user wrote. In that episode, titled "Be Right Back," a young woman uses AI software to help make a real-life recreation of her boyfriend, who died in a car accident. Worthy and co-founder Russell Geyser, a Hollywood producer, have marketed their AI startup as a safe way for celebrities to create AI chatbots that can talk to fans - with guardrails in place to prevent inappropriate conversations. "We saw an urgent need for creators and individuals to have agency over their own likeness - with their own avatars to use AI to amplify their voice, not replace it," Worthy told Variety in June. The actor, also known for starring in Hulu's "The Act," said the pair have raised $5 million from friends and family in "pre-seed" funding. Along with creating avatars of family members and friends, 2wai offers users the ability to create a "digital twin" - "a HoloAvatar who looks and talks like you, and even shares the same memories!" Worthy has an AI avatar of himself on the 2wai app, which he said he treats "as a living diary" - telling it behind-the-scenes stories from his Disney days to share with fans. The app also comes loaded with pre-generated avatars, like a William Shakespeare bot or original characters like Celest the astrologist and Darius the personal trainer. Worthy said the startup is "building a living archive of humanity, one story at a time."

Disney star's AI app letting users talk to deceased loved ones slammed as 'evil'

2wai, an AI-powered app co-founded by Disney star Calum Worthy, which allows users to create interactive avatars of deceased relatives, has sparked backlash on social media for its controversial nature. The app's promotional video, posted on X by Worthy last week, quickly went viral, amassing over 22 million views and generating a wave of criticism, according to Forbes. The ad features an expectant mother communicating with an AI-generated avatar of her deceased mother. The avatar interacts with the family as the son grows up and eventually has children of his own. Worthy wrote in his post that the company is "building a living archive of humanity," claiming that "loved ones we've lost could be part of our future." The app's concept quickly drew comparisons to the 2013 episode of Netflix's sci-fi series Black Mirror, "Be Right Back," in which a grieving woman uses an AI replica of her deceased partner. Social media reactions have been overwhelmingly negative. One user called the app "objectively one of the most evil ideas imaginable," with another remarking, "A former Disney Channel star creating the most evil thing I've ever seen in my life wasn't really what I was expecting." Another user labeled the app "demonic, dishonest, and dehumanizing," expressing they would never want to interact with an AI-generated persona of a deceased loved one. Critics have also questioned whether the app profits from people's grief, with some calling it an unhealthy way of coping with loss. 2wai allows users to create a "HoloAvatar," which, according to the company, "looks and talks like you, and even shares the same memories," Interesting Engineering reported. In addition to personal avatars, 2wai offers users the chance to interact with AI versions of historical figures like William Shakespeare, Florence Nightingale, King Henry VIII, and Frida Kahlo. These avatars are designed as "real-time teaching assistants," offering an immersive learning experience, according to The Independent. In an interview with Variety, Worthy explained that the app would also allow celebrities and artists to put "the control back in the hand