- 2wai AI App Can Create Realistic AI Avatars of Deceased Loved Ones
- A promotional video has caused intense discussion and some repulsion.
- 2wai launches “digital immortality” but it makes many people uncomfortable
Former Disney Channel star Calum Worthy has been exploring AI lately as co-founder of a startup called 2wai (pronounced “also why”) that can produce AI-powered facsimiles of people using just a few minutes of video and a few details about their personality. But a commercial promoted by Worthy for his company has some nervous about the idea of the app allowing users to talk to their deceased loved ones.
The ad shows a young pregnant woman video chatting with her mother. In a montage showing the baby growing up, the grandmother does not appear to age as she continues to give advice. Only in the final moments do viewers discover that the grandmother in question is a synthetic avatar, born from a three-minute video recording.
Cue the horror in the responses to Worthy’s post. Obvious black mirror The comparisons and exaggerated calls to stop necromancy are combined with many more serious and nuanced concerns about privacy and how using 2wai in this way could affect the grieving process.
But 2wai is more than grief-themed viral marketing. The app, developed by Worthy and its founder Russell Geyser, is intended to be a kind of social network for avatars. Not only can users record themselves or others for posthumous interaction, but they can also interact with AI recreations of historical icons, use chatbots for cooking and travel tips, or hang out with Worthy’s digitized self.
What if the loved ones we’ve lost could be part of our future? pic.twitter.com/oFBGekVo1RNovember 11, 2025
AI Necromancy
The company describes all this as a “living archive of humanity”, but in practice it is halfway between a digital diary and an educational simulator. You can get advice from Florence Nightingale, plan a picnic with King Henry VIII, or upload your own image to chat with your descendants long after you’re gone. The tone of the app is sentimental, but the public response suggests that the average person is not ready to upload their dead relatives into the maelstrom of the App Store.
Immortalizing yourself to preserve your voice for future generations sounds poetic, until you realize that you’re also creating a simulation of yourself that you can’t really control once you’re gone. If your AI twin starts acting in a way you never would, who is responsible? What if it is done without you knowing? 2wai could open Pandora’s box of what consent, memory and digital identity mean.
2wai is not the first to venture into the resurrection of AI. Companies like Replika and HereAfter have explored digital companionship and memory preservation for years. They face similar questions about the business model. While the app is available for free right now, you have to assume there will be a subscription or something else for the service. Do families pay to keep Grandma’s avatar active after the trial period?
The tension between sentiment and commerce is an ethical maelstrom. The average person might not object to a chatbot that helps them choose a pasta sauce. But throw in your late mother, or your childhood pet, or a historical figure now repackaged for profit, and things get murky.
Still, 2wai offers a digital life raft of sorts. For a parent who wants their voice to outlast them, the tone can be hard to resist, even if they are smart enough to understand that the avatar is not them, and is in no way truly sentient or self-aware.
For now, 2wai is very real and very alive. You can download it, record yourself, and leave a version of your personality for your great-grandchildren or strangers on the Internet to interact with. Whether that future is comforting, commercial, or something closer to uncanny valley horror will be revealed over time. And it will be up to us to decide. Or maybe even our avatars. You can watch the full announcement below.
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