The British immersive entertainment company Layered Reality has announced a new initiative to use artificial intelligence (AI) to bring back the rock and roll icon Elvis Presley for live performances.
“Elvis Evolution” will be an immersive experience for fans of the music star that employs AI and holographic projections of Elvis that are produced using thousands of personal photos and home videos.
Viewers will be taken on a virtual journey of Elvis’s life, from his Mississippi hometown and his Graceland estate to iconic Las Vegas performances.
CEO of Layered Reality Andrew McGuinness said in an interview with Reuters that the “crescendo” of the experience will be Elvis's “live” AI performance.
The show premieres in London in November and will then travel to other cities, including Las Vegas, Berlin and Tokyo.
Cointelegraph has reached out to Layered Reality for additional information on the AI methodology used in the Elvis recreation.
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This is the second instance in recent months where AI has been used to “bring back to life” a star from the past to perform again in the present.
In November 2023, Universal Music Group (UMG) released what was deemed the Beatles’ “last song” with a little help from AI. The track called “Now and Then” was made possible using AI to reproduce John Lennon’s vocal track.
Other musicians currently working in the industry have also jumped onto the trend of AI usage. Grimes, the popular musician and producer, was one of the first artists to speak out about the technology. In April 2023, she said she would split 50% of the royalties with creators generating AI music using her vocals.
Shortly after, Grimes launched her own open-source software program, elf.tech, which is solely dedicated to legally replicating her voice with AI for music creation.
However, AI replication has not always been met with such enthusiasm. This was one of the key negotiations in the strike by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists that shut down Hollywood for 118 days.
The deal that was eventually reached defined and established coverage for the creation, use and alteration of “digital replicas” of performers.
Nonetheless, many in Hollywood remained unsatisfied with the prospect of AI replication potentially minimizing work opportunities and implications for future usage of their likeness.
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