Sheeee’s baaack! Greta Garbo, that is. She died at the ripe old age of 84 in 1990. But here she is, pushing Swedish ball bearings in a brand-new ad. It was just a matter of time. AI is here, and with it comes a new age of resurrections.
What a time to be alive! Or dead, I guess. I have so many questions and only a few half-answers. Just the way I like it.
The Swedish company SKF released a video in which AI Garbo does her very best to make the humble ball bearing sound like the best thing since sliced bread. This is not quite as strange as it sounds. In 1921, a fifteen-year-old Garbo appeared in a promotional film featuring the company.
She obviously didn’t apply for this new job, but her estate thought it was a great idea to pull her out of retirement (i.e. death) for one more gig. Craig Reisfield says there may be more outings for his dead great-aunt and that she would have been proud. He also points to her successful transition from silent films to talkies, hinting that she would surely have embraced AI, too.
This made me think of sex. Or rather, consent. My general philosophy is: If you cannot give enthusiastic consent, the answer is always NO. And it’s bloody hard to give enthusiastic consent if you’re dead.
But Garbo has been dead for 36 years. She will never see the ad. She won’t be embarrassed by it. She won’t lose work because of it. What’s the harm? (Also, by now I have obviously left the sex analogy waaay behind. Don’t be a perv, you! Brrrr!) And yet time changes things. Somewhere between Greta Garbo and Cleopatra, the absence of consent seems to stop bothering us.
I doubt an AI version of the renowned polyglot Cleopatra, walking around Alexandria bigging up Duolingo, would attract much criticism. Most of us wouldn’t cringe any more than we do at any other awkward celebrity ad.
Would an AI Abe Lincoln bother me? Probably not. We survived Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, after all. Granted, it wasn’t AI, but it did involve the sixteenth president of the United States hunting vampires with an axe. I think we would survive him selling just about anything in AI form. Whether I’d buy it is another question.
What’s the difference between an actor pretending to be Abraham Lincoln and an AI pretending to be him? Perhaps less than I expected. Where enough material exists, AI could soon render a more convincing likeness than any actor in makeup could. But is a more convincing likeness necessarily better, or is it just another trip to the uncanny valley?
I work a few blocks away from where Garbo grew up. The building was demolished in 1967, but I still think about her when I walk by on my way to the office. I’ve always had a soft spot for her, so I must admit I watched the ad with some trepidation.
The whole thing annoyed me. Not because of AI Garbo. She was AOK. No, because it was so boring. It’s 1 minute and 40 seconds long, and I still had to fast-forward. Maybe it’s great fun if you’re into ball bearings. I’m not, so I was left with an overwhelming feeling: “You brought her back for this?”
In 1926–27, at just 21, Garbo went on a seven-month-long strike against Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), demanding higher wages and more control over the roles she played. Something tells me she wouldn’t have been particularly “proud” of being brought back from the dead to tout ball bearings. Again. I worked as a cleaner when I was a student. I would be properly pissed off if some relative agreed to raise me from the dead just so I could do it again.
I suspect I would have felt quite differently if they’d brought Garbo back to shine. AI is a tool, after all. Someone still has to decide what’s worth making. You can hand me a Stradivarius, but it won’t make me Vivaldi. And there’s still the little matter of consent.
After Garbo died, Sotheby’s auctioned off some of her furniture and art. In 2012, Julien’s Auctions sold her clothes and everyday possessions. I bought both catalogues out of a rather embarrassing case of morbid curiosity. The catalogues contained expensive paintings and beautiful furniture, but also ordinary items, such as wooden candlesticks and a Swedish Dala horse. Bits and pieces of her everyday life. I turned the pages feeling increasingly uncomfortable. Her passport, personal letters, even her pyjamas.
Some things looked as though they’d come straight out of that weird drawer we all have in our kitchens, cinema icon or not. You know the one. The one where all the bits and bobs that don’t belong anywhere else end up. Among Garbo’s knick-knacks was a small yellow smiley face ball. It, too, went to the highest bidder. It felt too private for comfort.
The odd thing is that the sale of Garbo’s everyday possessions bothered me far more than AI Garbo did. But then again, AI Garbo is an imitation of the public persona she created. The smiley-face ball made me picture her with bed hair, sitting in her pyjamas, doing a crossword puzzle over a cup of coffee on a Sunday morning. It also made me feel like a Peeping Tom.
For centuries, we’ve kept cultural icons alive through their work. Now we can put them back to work. Preferably with their enthusiastic consent. (Hello, ABBA Voyage!) I wonder whether anyone ever asked Garbo what she wanted done with that little yellow ball.
AI or not, becoming part of our shared cultural heritage means gradually losing control over where the public you ends and the private you begins. And once you’re dead, that decision belongs to the living. Who may or may not have your best interests at heart.
Just one thing, though. If we’re going to bring the great Garbo back from the dead, could we please, please give the woman a decent script to work with?
Do your principles sometimes disagree with your feelings? Tell me all about it!
Peckish for more?
Image credits: Greta Garbo in Anna Christie (publicity still). AI-generated illustrations created with ChatGPT.
