AI is bringing celebrities back from the dead, and it’s as creepy as it sounds

• Legendary British TV talk show host Michael Parkinson to return in AI form
• Polish radio station Off Radio Krakow sacks its hosts and uses AI instead
• New Tom Hanks movie Here uses AI to de-age its stars

AI is being used to launch a new podcast from the late, great British TV talk show host Michael Parkinson, who died in 2023 aged 88. While that might sound creepy to some, the project called Virtually Parkinson is being fully backed by Mike Parkinson, the son of the legendary talk show host, and his estate.

Virtually Parkinson has been produced by Deep Fusion Films and will be an 8-part series launching later this year. Each episode will be unscripted, with the guests talking to the AI-generated Parkinson on headphones, as if he was a real person.

Michael Parkinson, known as “Parky”, was a legend of the British talk show scene, most notable for his TV show called simply Parkinson, which launched in 1971 and was a mainstay of British television until 1982. The show was brought back in 1998 and ran until 2004.

You can hear the AI-generated Michael Parkinson talk on a recent episode of ‘The rest is entertainment’ podcast. The fact that this isn’t Michael Parkinson talking is particularly creepy because it sounds just like him. His son however appears to be totally on board with the project. Each episode of the show is signposted to indicate that this is an AI-generated Michael Parkinson talking, so there is no attempt to deceive the listener. Talking to Podnews, Mike Parkinson commented “The podcast is really a tribute to my Dad. I want audiences to marvel at the technology, the cleverness and the cheekiness of the concept, but mostly I want them to remember just…