Val Kilmer is set to be reincarnated on the big screen through generative AI. Arts writer Derek McArthur looks at the unethical rabbit hole this has unleashed.

In 2012, Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival brought out a special surprise performer. It was legendary rapper Tupac Shakur.

No, he was not lying low in Cuba all these years, or whatever conspiracies circulated from the disbelief of his early, tragic death. Shakur really was murdered in 1996 on the Vegas Strip after attending a Mike Tyson boxing match.

But there he was on the Coachella stage, performing his song 2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted with old labelmate and collaborator Snoop Dogg.

His feet didn’t quite attach to the ground, making his performance seem rather ghostly and unreal. This new Shakur was a hologram, programmed to run through his stage moves and “perform” the song in semi-realistic fashion.

It was seen at the time as a novelty. Memes inbound. There was the minority that pointed out how using a dead artist’s likeness in this way was disrespectful to the legacy of a real person, yet it signalled a future for all the deceased stars that still orbit our culture - that they can be re-animated, again and again, their actual physical presence being a mere barrier to entertaining us all once more. Elvis has........

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