Tom Brady Threatens Legal Action Over A.I. Comedy Special!

M.B.

The future is here, and it’s… so, so stupid.

If you haven’t been following tech, art, film, or celeb news the past couple years — well, heck, what are you doing here?? LOLz! But seriously, the subject of A.I. is unavoidable. People are using artificial intelligence programs to generate imitation photos and paintings, write terrible term papers, deep fake celebs, and worse. On the spectrum of A.I. controversies, this one wasn’t even particularly heated — but Tom Brady wasn’t having any of it!

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After hearing the strange rumor that the seven-time Super Bowl winner was going to try is hand at standup comedy, the guys behind the YouTube channel Dudesy released a comedy special from “Tom Brady” last week. Using an A.I. algorithm, they created an odd, obviously fake-looking version of the QB doing some jokes they wrote for him, such as:

“Anybody on the apps right now? I’m recently single and thinking about getting on them, but here’s the problem. I’ve never been on them, I don’t really know what I’m doing. Someone sent me a message on Bumble. She said, ‘You look just like Tom Brady,’ and I said, ‘I am Tom Brady,’ she said, ‘Prove it,’ so I went to her house and let a little air out of all of her footballs.”

It’s a pretty silly vid and was titled to reflect it wasn’t real — it was called It’s Too Easy: A Simulated Hour-Long Comedy Special. But it also just looks so bizarre no one could mistake it for the real thing…

But Tom wanted to nip any simulations of himself in the bud! His legal team quickly sent a cease-and-desist letter to the hosts of Dudesy — author Chad Kultgen and MadTV fave Will Sasso — saying they “used Brady’s name and likeness” to “promote” their podcast.

They were told to take down the video immediately, which they’ve since done. Kultgen and Sasso may not be putting up a legal fight, but they’re definitely arguing the point on their podcast. Speaking about it on Tuesday, they explained how Brady’s lawyers described the special as “an hour-long monologue delivered in Mr. Brady’s voice.” Kultgen argued it’s an “A.I. simulation” of his voice and not his voice. Not sure if this is just splitting hairs, legally speaking.

You can see their full response to the cease-and-desist document (below) starting at about the 8:30 mark.

Again, this is a pretty harmless version of what people can do — and are already doing — with A.I. But we can understand why, when it comes to these kinds of simulations, a public figure might want to crack down before someone tries anything really problematic.

Besides, if this is really funny, maybe it’ll hurt Brady’s actual forthcoming comedy special! LOLz!

What do YOU think, Perezcious readers? It’s a brave new world we live in, that has such simulated people in it…

[Image via Tom Brady/Instagram/Dudesy/YouTube.]

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