Greta Garbo has been posthumously resurrected by artificial intelligence for a bizarre, humourless 99-second television advertisement for the Swedish ball-bearings company Svenska Kullagerfabriken (SKF), prompting concerns about the future use of AI on celebrity images.
The screen legend, who died in 1990, appears in the ad dressed in a silk blouse and stylish slacks, key-lit like a movie star. She is first shown in dreamy profile-silhouette, then standing by a stool, prefacing her script with movie-type lines such as “Are we rolling?” before droning out her appreciation for the industrial product. The ad ends with an odd, stilted joke about her well-known yearning for solitude.
A Stepford robo-star
The AI Greta Garbo is described as a bizarre soignée figure, a Stepford robo-star, a Hallmark-greeting-card parody of the icy hauteur, distraite sensuality and deadpan comedy that Garbo projected in life. The AI version resembles the classiest presenter of a TV shopping channel, purring through a dull script that seeks to create brand synergy between SKF’s frictionless ball-bearings and what the company imagines to be Garbo’s own smoothness.
In the ad, AI Greta remarks: “One of my first films was for SKF and now I’m back for my last.”
Historical connection and licensing concerns
The advertisement references a real historical connection: in 1921, the 15-year-old future screen icon, then known as Greta Gustafsson, briefly appeared in a promotional film for SKF. This was reportedly an offshoot of the women’s clothing commercials she was doing at the time for Stockholm’s PUB department store, which helped launch her movie career.
The new film is reportedly derived not from any of Garbo’s own movie appearances but from images and pictures that exist elsewhere. This may mean SKF need not negotiate with corporate movie studios, who might be wary of people making free with Garbo’s image, which is part of their copyright-protected IP, but only with Garbo’s distant relatives, who might be more amenable. Those relatives have indicated they are not averse to licensing the AI Greta Garbo for other movies.
The article concludes by expressing hope that this dull AI Garbo is not the way of the future, noting that guardrails were never more badly needed.
