Sharon and son Jack claimed that AI recreation of the late Black Sabbath rocker would be ‘tasteful’ and ‘creative’
Sharon Osbourne has hit back at claims that the AI hologram her family is creating of her late husband Ozzy is a “cash grab”.
In May, Sharon and her son Jack revealed at a licensing trade event that the family was working with AI avatar company Hyperreal And Proto Hologram on a digital version of Ozzy which would live on following his death aged 76 last July.
“You can ask Ozzy anything, and he will answer you in his own voice… We’re going to take it all around the world. People can talk to him and he will talk back,” the 73-year-old said at the event.
But the move sparked criticism from Black Sabbath fans, which the pair addressed on Friday’s (5 June) episode of The Osbournes Podcast as they said that the AI avatar of Ozzy was going to be “tasteful” and “creative”.
Jack, 40, opened the segment by addressing specific criticisms made about “old AI Ozzy”, with Sharon immediately responding: “Oh, for f***’s sake. I was reading some of them, and it’s like, ‘Oh, f*** off.”
Jack then raised concerns from fans who suggested that it was “too soon/disrespectful”, that the musician was being “kept on digital life support” and that the decision was an exploitative “gimmick” that was ruining his legacy as a live performer.
Responding to the critics, Sharon said: “It’s like saying when there were propeller [planes] and then there were jet planes, ‘Cash grab! Why go on a jet when there’s a propeller? What are you doing?’
“Well, you know what? Technology moves on. And I’m sorry for those people. I’m not asking you to come. I don’t want your f***ing money. I don’t need your f***ing money. I’m doing very well, actually. For somebody to turn around to me and say I’m doing a cash grab? No, you don’t know my husband, OK? I know my husband.”
Mother-of-three Sharon claimed that the family had been exploring a project like this for a decade, as the Black Sabbath rocker used to repeatedly ask her: “After I go, how long do you think I’ll be remembered?”
“I don’t have to justify [what] we do to any f***er… What do they think we’re going to do? I’m going to hawk my husband around selling weed killer on an ad or selling cigarettes or beer? Do you think I’m going to do that? No… I’m not going to let anyone [bastardise] my husband.”
Sharon responded: “[It] will pass on through our family, and it’s for our grandkids.”
Announcing news of the AI Ozzy last month at the Licensing Expo in Las Vegas, Jack said that this move would allow his father to “exist digitally as himself for as long as we have computers”.
mation “that either my dad said or was written accurately about him”.