Jennifer Lopez has teamed up with Virgin Voyages to create “custom invites” via an AI version of Lopez, called “Jen AI.” If you want an invite from JLo, however, there’s a catch.
Go to the Virgin Voyages website and Jen AI prompts you to share some information about yourself, including your first name, and plans for your trip, so it can customize your message.
Here’s the catch: Jen AI will only say the user’s first name and the first name of the guest they’re inviting on their vacation if those names are included on a list that has already been programmed into the platform.
So, if your first name is, just as an example, Aaron, Betty, Carol, or Daniel, congratulations. Jen AI can speak your name. At first glance, it looks like there might be a few hundred names included on the Virgin Voyages website. And, luckily, not all of them are traditional names. Also listed are names like Emrys, Kaitlyn, and Mackenzie.
However, just as an example, names like Arnold, Timothy, Natasha and Mateo are not listed. So, instead of saying those names during the video portion of the invite, Jen AI will instead refer to the main user as “sailor.” If your invitee’s name isn’t listed, Jen AI will refer to that person as “your friend.”
At the end of the day, this feels like something straight out of Black Mirror and is eerily similar to what Salma Hayek had to go through in the season 6 premiere that just dropped. But we shouldn’t be surprised when other companies like Dove Chocolate used CGI for a commercial even though she died in 1993 and The Flash brought back past Superman actors with the use of quickly advancing technology.
