rp Reacts: AI JLo

It finally happened—celebrity deepfakes have entered the mainstream. Virgin Voyages’ new campaign allows folks to create custom video vacation invitations with the help of Jen AI (an AI’fied version of Jennifer Lopez). 

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Here are our teams’ thoughts on whether this campaign raises some red flags or if it’s the best thing AI has ever Jen-erated:

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I love this! Funny and I'm engaged. BUT I don’t think I'm buying a cruise from them.

- Jessica Nerad, People Team Director

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It's impressive technology, but I honestly don't care much for it. The potential for abuse is too high and the actual benefit is negligible. The only people who will benefit directly are the rich and famous and the corporations who pay them for their likeness, while people not in that group will almost certainly only ever be harmed by it.

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There's also the argument that it puts people out of jobs or robs them of opportunity. If I can just pay Robert Downey Jr. to use his likeness in my movie/TV show/commercial, then why would I ever give that acting job to another actor? I can just have RDJ star in all of my movies for the next 100 years and pay somebody minimum pay scale to do some mocap work.

- Sterling Crawford, IT Operations Specialist

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I feel like it’s one of those Jurassic Park moments. They can, but should they? I see how it’s a novel idea for customizing a campaign, but Sterling does raise some great points.

- Drew Beamer, Associate Creative Director

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(Setting aside the ethical issues), what this team did well is create a celebrity activation that works passively too. The ad itself is engaging and funny while including the key selling points. Then there is a meaningful extension for the celebrity-oriented.

- Karla Jackson, Marketing Practice Creative Director

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‍Does Jennifer Lopez even age or is this just all AI?‍

- Ryon Nishimori, Senior Art Director

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I like that this campaign is educating the general public on deepfakes and hopefully subtly training people to not trust anything that comes across the internet lines. Online, I always say it’s “Guilty until proven innocent.” I like how each person thinks they can do a better job at being JLo, yet their own personalities shine through. The “Boooooring” made me laugh. 

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I like the packaging and size of this campaign. I mean, who doesn’t love a personalized video? This could be the automated AI version of the personalized Old Spice video campaign a while back. I don’t like giving out personal info to these things, but I think they asked for just the right amount of info—I wasn’t triggered.

- Matt Reed, Creative Technologist

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