Legendary rocker Ozzy Osbourne died last year at 76, but his family and two tech startups are going to bring him back as an AI avatar. Son Jack Osbourne promises it won't be "fucking lame," but fans seem to think the whole idea is lame to begin with.
"It's gonna be so tasteful," he said in a YouTube Q&A last week, two days after the plan was announced. "It's really complex what we're doing. This isn't just like hooking up an image of my dad to ChatGPT."
"Tasteful" being all anyone ever wanted from Ozzy.
The news was shared at something called the "Licensing Expo" in Las Vegas, where "Global Brand Deals Happen"
From Paw Patrol backpacks generating $300M in sales to the sold-out Barbie x Balmain collaboration, Licensing Expo is the birthplace of the most successful brand extensions.
The companies digitally resurrecting the Black Sabbath frontman are Hyperreal and Proto Hologram. This is the same team behind the Stan Lee hologram at Comic-Con, which landed to nearly total revulsion.
"You can ask Ozzy anything, and he will answer you in his own voice – and the answers will be what Ozzy would have said," says Sharon. "We're going to take it all around the world. People can talk to him and he will talk back."
