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A new AI-powered app co-founded by Disney Channel alum Callum Worthy that allows users to create interactive avatars of deceased relatives has sparked a backlash on social media, with many users calling the technology dystopian and comparing it to the sci-fi series Black Mirror.
Former Disney Channel actor Callum Worthy co-founded the AI app 2wai. (Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Next Generation Indie Film Awards)
Getty Images for Next Generation Indie Film Awards
important facts
Worthy, who appeared on the Disney Channel series “Austin & Ally,” posted an ad for the app “2wai” on X earlier this week. Since then, the ad has gone viral, racking up over 22 million views and thousands of critical responses.
The ad depicts a pregnant mother communicating with an AI-generated avatar resembling her late mother through the 2wai app, and the avatar’s interactions with her family as her son is born, grows up, and eventually has a child of his own.
The end of the ad shows how the woman created an AI avatar of her mother, which appears to have been generated by the app after the woman filmed her mother talking and moving for three minutes.
At the end of the ad, the company declares, “With 2wai, 3 minutes last forever,” and Worthy said in the post that the company is “building a living archive of humanity” and that “the loved ones we’ve lost can become part of our future.”
Forbes has contacted 2wai for comment.
main critic
Worthy’s post containing the ad received just 6,000 likes, but support from X users was far outweighed by critical responses condemning the technology as inhumane. One user said the app was “objectively one of the most evil ideas imaginable” and received 210,000 likes. “I really wasn’t expecting a former Disney Channel star to create the most evil thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” said another user, who also received 139,000 likes. One user, who has 12,000 likes, called the app “satanic, dishonest and inhuman” and said he would never want an AI-generated persona on the app because “my value dies with me. I’m not an avatar.” Other users suggested that the app, which is free to download but allows the purchase of paid avatars and digital items, was profiting off of grief and could be an unhealthy way for people to cope with loss.
