Ozzy Osbourne set to return as AI avatar
Ozzy Osbourne hasn’t quite returned from the dead, but an AI version of the metal legend will be made available to the public later this summer.
On the main stage at the Licensing Expo in Las Vegas, Sharon and Jack Osbourne gave a talk titled ‘The Enduring Legacy Of A Rock Icon And His Family: Ozzy Osbourne And The Osbournes,’ where they shared the surprising update.
In partnership with the company Hyperreal, the family has given their permission for a digital Ozzy to come to life. He will first appear in Proto Luma units in the UK and the US later this summer.
A Proto Luma unit is a life-sized, patented holoportation device fit with multi-touch volumetric display and conversational and spatial AI capabilities.
Hyperreal CEO Remington Scott shared with Blabbermouth, “Every element of this avatar was built exclusively from authenticated, approved source material: curated, consented, and controlled by the people who love him most”.
His wife, Sharon, has shared her excitement at the project, explaining, “You can ask Ozzy anything, and he will answer you in his own voice – and the answers will be what Ozzy would have said. We’re going to take it all around the world. People can talk to him and he will talk back.”
Jack added, “It’s kind of scary how it’s really very accurate. He will exist digitally as himself for as long as we have computers. Technology has come such a long way to where it’s almost drag and drop.”
This isn’t the first famous AI avatar the Hyperreal team is working on; last year, they created an AI avatar of comic book legend Stan Lee for the Los Angeles Comic Con, charging fans $15 at the event to chat with the holographic Lee.
Elsewhere in the world of AI resurrection, Val Kilmer will return from the grave in AI form in the forthcoming movie As Deep as the Grave, a decision much contested by many but defended by his daughter, Mercedes, who promised that the move is not intended to “replace him”.
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