One AP Wire, Two Texts: The Avatar Line Was Rewritten in Transit

This is a courtesy rendering. The desk’s own text below is the record; where the two differ, the record wins.

TL;DR

Alex Gibney's documentary "Musk" uses a digital stand-in that speaks Musk's own public words. An Associated Press wire describing the device exists in two forms: one calls it an AI avatar, the other a CGI avatar with AI voice syncing. Fifteen newsrooms used eight different labels for the same device. No verdict is rendered on which label is correct.

The charge

Gibney could not get Elon Musk to sit for an interview, so he built a stand-in that speaks Musk's own public words. That device is the central description in every piece about the film, and the description is unstable in two ways: a wire that exists in two forms, and a naming split across fifteen newsrooms.

The audit

Newsmax, running the AP wire with no correction note, described it this way: "A new documentary about Elon Musk uses an Artificial Intelligence avatar to simulate an interview with the SpaceX and Tesla CEO using things he’s really said in interviews."

The Washington Times ran the same wire with the lead rewritten: "uses a CGI avatar and artificial intelligence voice syncing to simulate an interview with the SpaceX and Tesla CEO using things he’s really said in interviews." A note at the foot of the page said: "This story has been updated to remove a reference to the use of an AI avatar to simulate the Musk interview."

But the body of that same page still says, in its own voice: "The filmmakers consulted lawyers before going too far down the road and got the sign-off to use the Musk avatar." The note's stated scope is larger than the edit beneath it.

AP's own page at the wire URL carries no avatar sentence at all — it is a Gibney Q&A — so the wire text exists only in its syndicated copies. One form says "an Artificial Intelligence avatar," the other says "a CGI avatar and artificial intelligence voice syncing," and the note at the bottom of the second page states that a reference to "the use of an AI avatar to simulate the Musk interview" was removed.

The naming census across fifteen desks shows the split. The BBC wrote "Musk himself isn't interviewed – but appears as an AI avatar" and that "The director's solution is to have an AI-generated avatar of Musk repeat things that he has said in public." The Washington Post described "generating an uncanny, eerie, animated digital avatar of Musk." The Guardian wrote that "he creates a photorealistic CG avatar who mouths all the things the man himself is reported as saying". The Los Angeles Times called it "the filmmakers created a CG avatar in his likeness — realistically rendered but clearly artificial — dressed in a black leather jacket and seated in a gamer chair."

Deadline wrote that Gibney would "turn Musk into a CGI avatar, enthroned in the purple glow of a digital background, eerily mouthing words". Variety said "he appears in the film through AI as an uncanny video game-like avatar". Vulture described "an eerie digital avatar of Elon Musk, animated to say things he’s uttered in previous interviews and appearances." NPR wrote: "He uses a creepy AI-generated avatar of Musk talking directly to the camera."

The Sydney Morning Herald described "putting Musk’s extreme pronouncements into the mouth of a graphic avatar in a space suit." The Times (London) called it "a CGI avatar that parrots previous Musk pronouncements and pops into the documentary at judicious points." The Telegraph wrote that "the director deploys a computer-generated stand-in, who sits in a gaming chair and ventriloquises statements previously made by the real Musk on the public record." CBC News said "an AI avatar of Musk mouths along to quotes that Musk has said in the past". El País wrote "un avatar que reproduce algunas de sus frases." The Daily Beast said "Gibney employs an "AI Eloninterviewee who speaks with Musk's verbatim quotes. The Hollywood Reporter wrote it appears "through a kind of avatar, which speaks with Musk’s actual words".

The defense

Some coverage judged the device. NPR's review said: "for a project that tackles all the big weighty subjects of our time, the deepfake Musk only serves to cheapen and distract an otherwise serious film." Vulture's review found "there’s something curiously aspirational, almost flattering about this avatar; we suspect it’s the way Musk might have wanted to present himself."

Reuters described without judging: "The simulated character's script is based on a database of Musk's statements and comments made in public." NBC News wrote of "pulling together not only archival interviews and hard-to-find footage but also a database of quotes from Musk that are peppered throughout the film" — its piece contains no description of the avatar itself.

Newsmax's copy carried the AP wire whole, with no correction note appended. The Washington Times disclosed the edit but left the body untouched, which is ordinary wire practice; the reasoning for the edit is not in the record.

Fox News, the Washington Examiner, the Daily Caller, National Review, The Federalist and Just the News were searched for a piece on the avatar device; nothing came back. That is an absence found, not an absence proven.

The verdict

The wire and the newsrooms agree on what happened — Gibney made a thing that speaks Musk's words. The newsrooms have not settled on what to call the thing, or, in one case, on whether the page still calls it anything at all. The evidence on whether any one label is correct is not adjudicated: whether the two wire byte-forms and fifteen newsrooms describe the same filmmaking device with divergent labels is established, with high confidence in the quotation matches only.