AI-Powered Stan Lee Hologram Debuts at LA Comic Con

An anonymous reader shared this report from Ars Technica: Late last week, The Hollywood Reporter ran a story about an "AI Stan Lee hologram" that would be appearing at the LA Comic Con this weekend. [Watch it in action here.] Nearly seven years after the famous Marvel Comics creator's death at the age of 95, fans will be able to pay $15 to $20 this weekend to chat with a life-sized, AI-powered avatar of Lee in an enclosed booth at the show. The instant response from many fans and media outlets to the idea was not kind, to say the least. A writer for TheGamer called the very idea "demonic" and said we need to "kill it with fire before it's too late...."

But Chris DeMoulin, the CEO of the parent company behind LA Comic Con, urged critics to come see the AI-powered hologram for themselves before rushing to judgment. "We're not afraid of people seeing it and we're not afraid of criticism," he told Ars. "I'm just a fan of informed criticism, and I think most of what's been out there so far has not really been informed...." [DeMoulin said he saw] "the leaps and bounds that they were making in improving the technology, improving the interactivity." Now, he said, it's possible to create an AI-powered version that ingests "all of the actual comments that people made during their life" to craft an interactive hologram that "is not literally quoting the person, but everything it was saying was based on things that person actually said...." [Hyperreal CEO and Chief Architect Remington Scott] said Hyperreal "can't share specific technical details" of the models or training techniques they use to power these recreations. But Scott added that this training project is "particularly meaningful, [because] Stan Lee had actually begun digitizing himself while he was alive, with the vision of creating a digital double so his fans could interact with him on a larger scale...."

Still, DeMoulin said he understands why the idea of using even a stylized version of Lee's likeness in this manner could rub some fans the wrong way. "When a new technology comes out, it just feels wrong to them, and I respect the fact that this feels wrong to people," he said. "I totally agree that something like this-not just for Stan but for anyone, any celebrity alive or dead-could be put into this technology and used in a way that would be exploitative and unfortunate." That's why DeMoulin said he and the others behind the AI-powered Lee feel a responsibility "to make sure that if we were going to do this, we never got anywhere close to that."
The "premium, authenticated digital identities" created by Hyperreal's system are "not replacing artists," says Hyperreal CEO/Chief Architect Remington Scott, but "creating respectful digital extensions that honor their legacy."

Still, DeMoulin says in the article that "I suppose if we do it and thousands of fans interact with [it] and they don't like it, we'll stop doing it."

The AIvengers!

[afaiktoit]

That's all I had to say.

Creepy

[RitchCraft]

But cool at the same time. If Stan wanted this then by all means give it a try. I can see how this tech could easily be abused though.

Re:Creepy

[OrangAsm]

Shouldn't there heads be in a jar when they do this?

Re:

[RitchCraft]

Nixon has to be the first. The rest will follow.

Re:

[arglebargle_xiv]

I'm wondering how long it'll take before someone gets the "AI" hologram to announce that it's MechaHitler, or that Batman could beat that wuss Spiderman any day of the week.

Re:

[haruchai]

there's an FB group The Marvel Method dedicated to exposing Stan Lee as a longtime grifter, thief and idiot who stole money & credit from the likes of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and, in the rare occasions he did any work, made the stories & dialogue worse.
Good luck saying even one mildly flattering thing about Lee to them

At Least He Doesn't Suffer for It Anymore

[Kunedog]

From what I heard, Lee was paraded out on the con circuit for too long in his old age.

"Not replacing artists"...

[Anonymous Freak]

> The "premium, authenticated digital identities" created by Hyperreal's system are "not replacing artists," says Hyperreal CEO/Chief Architect Remington Scott

Yeah, they're allowing the families of dead celebrities to wring a few more dollars out of their corpses...

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Not speaking for or as the type of fan who goes to comic cons, but Stan Lee was well known to both love attention and loved interacting with fans. He would probably love this idea (as the article states, he *started this* process while still alive), but I'm sure he would want control over what is being said or discussed, which by its current nature, LLM is not really possible in doing. Though with the sheer amount of words spoken by Stan Lee available, it will probably be a decent enough representation.

And meanwhile...

[Viol8]

... comic writers have been wringing dollars out of the same old storylines and cheesy "heroes" since the 1940s.

Re:

[misnohmer]

Why not? I'd be happy if my kids could "wring a few more dollars out of my corpse". If you don't want your kids or other family to get anything from you after you pass on, just write a will to ensure all those "wrung dollars" go to the cause of your choice (could be a charity, or could be Vladimir Putin if that is who you choose, or a trust you setup to send your ashes as far into the universe as the money from your corpse will pay for). Either way, you get to choose. Heck, if you're really smart and in dem

Asking critics to come and see it before judging

[Mostly a lurker]

I find it hilarious that Remington Scott is asking people to spend $15 to $20 to see the hologram before he considers any criticism of the idea to be valid. Of course, from his point of view, that is a great idea.

Re:

[misnohmer]

They don't have to pay. They can wait and base their criticism on what people who did pay say. No different than any other product. You can criticize the latest iPhone without ever having put your hand on an iPhone, but perhaps your criticism would be worth a lot more to potential customers if you actually own one, or at least have used one for some time. You can also criticize all phones as a category too, but even then, your criticism would be more credible if you ever owned one, rather than repeating wha

\o/

[easyTree]

"We're not afraid of people seeing it and we're not afraid of criticism," he told Ars. "I'm just a fan of informed criticism

=== gotta pay before you criticise.

Logic fail dude.

How about you pay people $40 plus entry, food, travel and opportunity-cost-fee to try the abomination and give a review?

Maybe you should have dug Stan's corpse up and animated it with robotic-powered AI, that would have been tasteful and has the AI buzzword!

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[Mirnotoriety]

“Late last week, The Hollywood Reporter ran a story [hollywoodreporter.com] about an "AI Stan Lee hologram" that would be appearing at the LA Comic Con [comicconla.com] this weekend. [Watch it in action here. [youtube.com]]”

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My favorite quote

[flippy]

from the article is 'DeMoulin says in the article that "I suppose if we do it and thousands of fans interact with [it] and they don't like it, we'll stop doing it."'

Translation: as long as suckers are willing to pay to see it, we'll keep doing it, regardless of ethics."

Projections are not "holograms"

[diodeus]

...they're just projections. Stop raising them to some techno wonderment achievement. It's just a projector.

Re:

[ambrandt12]

I was going to say that... a proper hologram would be displaying a vase volumetrically on your desk that your hand passes through, but otherwise looks totally real.
This is just a bunch of projectors showing a set of images (or lasers scanning) on a bunch of like transparent screens of some sort. It's the same thing as the big ABBA concert.
In the Wisconsin Dells, there's Ripley's Believe It Or Not... among the stuff is (or was... don't know if it's still there) an Egypt exhibit, and one of the things is a l

This is barely the beginning

[Baron_Yam]

Imagine you have recordings of every letter written, email sent, phone call made, video recorded, etc. of a deceased loved one... throw in their credit history and essentially every digital trace of them you can get your hands on in addition to scanning all the analog data.

Now train an AI on that and you have a 'ghost' of the person you lost that you can interact with for as long as you wish.

Ghoulish, I think, but it'll happen. And one day, when you want to meet your ancestors, you'll call up their AI gho