AI resurrects legendary Spanish singer to hawk beer

The celebrated Spanish singer Lola Flores died in 1995, but a brewery is using AI to bring her back to life.

Sevillan beer company Cruzcampo made a deepfake of the iconic Andalusian the star of a new ad campaign.

The company pitches the commercial as a celebration of the diversity of Spanish accents.

“Do you know why I was understood all over the world? Because of my accent,” says Flores’ AI reincarnation. “And I’m not just referring to the way I talk…”

The company recreated her voice, face, and features using hours of audiovisual material, more than 5,000 photos, and a painstaking composition and post-production process, according to El País.

The video below (in Spanish) gives more details on how it was made:

Flores’ daughters Rosario and Lolita were personally involved in the project, and my Andalusian colleague Pablo said he could imagine Lola supporting the message.

But others were quick to condemn the campaign for putting words in her mouth that she didn’t say — just to market beer.

One thing they all agreed on was that the deepfake Flores is an impressively realistic recreation of the singer.

[Read: How this company leveraged AI to become the Netflix of Finland]

The ad was released shortly after a report named deepfakes the most concerning use of AI for crime and terrorism. But the campaign shows the tech can also turn the dead into effective booze peddlers.

¡Salud!