A former Disney Channel star’s controversial app has been fiercely slammed online.
Calum Worthy, who starred as Dez Wade on the Disney Channel series Austin & Ally, recently posted an advertisement for his app 2wai, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to create avatars of dead loved ones.
The app – which was co-founded by Worthy and Hollywood producer Russell Geyser – allows users to create and interact with ‘HoloAvatars.’
They are made in just three minutes, and ‘allow real‑time, two‑way interaction like never before,’ according to its website.
The controversial ad that Worthy posted on X shows a pregnant woman speaking to an AI recreation of her deceased mother through the app.
The video then jumped forward in time, showing AI recreation of the woman’s mother reading a bedtime story to her newborn baby boy, talking to his as he returned from school and discussing the birth of his own child.
Finally, the video showed the woman making a short recording of her mother to create the digital avatar, as a slogan stated: ‘With 2wai, three minutes can last forever.’
However, social media users were furious by the concept, comparing it to an episode of Black Mirror and branding it as ‘predatory’ and ‘disgusting.’
Calum Worthy, who starred as Dez Wade on the Disney Channel series Austin & Ally, co-founded the app 2wai, which uses artificial intelligence to create avatars of dead loved ones
He posted an advertisement for the controversial app online this week and it sparked immense backlash
‘This is so predatory. People need to grieve and accept when people pass away,’ one person wrote.
‘Talking to something puppetting your dead relatives face is just going to feed a delusion and not let people grieve. It’s demonic and going to cause so much more mental illness.’
Another agreed, ‘Gross behavior. Instead of letting the deceased beat peace and their loved ones cope with their loss, people use AI to take advantage of their struggles. You can’t convince me that AI usage isn’t immoral.’
‘Playing off of people’s guilt and unprocessed emotions. Absolutely disgusting and dystopian,’ someone else typed.
‘Literally a Black Mirror episode,’ another X user remarked.
One user questioned, ‘Is that even ethical?’
‘Because what grief needs is a monetized AI impersonation of your dead grandma,’ another sarcastically seconded.
The 2wai app – pronounced ‘two way’ – is now available for iOS devices on the App Store and allows users to create virtual avatars, which the company calls a ‘HoloAvatar.’
The app – which was co-founded by Worthy and Hollywood producer Russell Geyser – allows users to create and interact with ‘HoloAvatars’
Social media users were furious by the concept, comparing it to an episode of Black Mirror and branding it as ‘predatory’ and ‘disgusting’
The ‘HoloAvatars’ are made in just three minutes, and ‘allow real‑time, two‑way interaction like never before,’ according to its website
Worthy is seen in Austin & Ally in 2011
These are essentially animated interfaces for chatbots, designed to look like real or fictional individuals.
The company has created several default HoloAvatars, including a personal trainer named Darius, an astrologist called Celeste and a chef named Luca.
2wai has also appropriated the likenesses of historical figures such as Shakespeare and, bizarrely, King Henry VIII.
However, the most shocking aspect of the tech is the ability to create HoloAvatars out of real individuals by recording a three–minute video of them.
The company hasn’t shared any information about how this tiny amount of data would allow the AI to recreate someone’s personality, and 2wai did not respond to a request for further information.
Despite the enormous backlash, Worthy is not the first person to try to use technology to bring back the dead.
In 2020, Kanye West famously gifted Kim Kardashian a holographic recreation of her late father, Rob Kardashian.
Since then, AI has been used to recreate the voices of dead celebrities such as Edith Piaf, James Dean and Burt Reynolds.
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Published on: 2025-11-17 22:20:00
Source: www.dailymail.co.uk
