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by waffl 2727 days ago
This reminds me of an old story of how the Japanese idol band AKB48 added a new member who turned out to be a computer composite in 2011, to think what they could do with technology today and in the future:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piZ2TkdK4Dw

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aimi_Eguchi

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Or this Hatsune Miku which doesn't even exist but performs in concerts as a holographic character on stage, and the vocals are synthesized: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatsune_Miku
I take for granted that in the not so distant future well'see dead actors/musicians replicas performing alone or along real ones. Having John Lennon and Kurt Cobain perform together or John Wayne himself commanding the USS Enterprise (the starship, not the carrier) is just a few years and some lawyers away. Dead star franchises will probably love that though, so the incentive to perfection the technology will very likely bring us to a point where almost all artists will be machine generated because they cost a fraction of real ones.
Somewhat related, there's also a Japanese character/synth/software package called Hatsune Miku that is flat out an animated hologram that is just a voice synthesizer for its voice.

It is currently on tour...

You posted this while I was looking up the link to post. Else I would have replied to you
This morning is getting stranger with every post or comment I read.
William Gibson foresaw that one ages ago.
heck all the theorists of the hyperreal, too, including Baudrillard, Postman:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperreality

"Hyperreality is seen as a condition in which what is real and what is fiction are seamlessly blended together so that there is no clear distinction between where one ends and the other begins.[1] It allows the co-mingling of physical reality with virtual reality (VR) and human intelligence with artificial intelligence (AI).[1] Individuals may find themselves, for different reasons, more in tune or involved with the hyperreal world and less with the physical real world."