Netflix has felt the wrath of its subscribers after employing a controversial tool in a documentary moment many are calling ‘creepy’ and ‘disrespectful to the victim’.
The streaming giant’s latest true crime offering, American Murder: Gabby Petito, chronicles the disappearance and death of a popular YouTuber during the summer of 2021.
Initially, Petito embarked on a summer sightseeing trip with her fiancé, Brian Laundrie.
But when the latter returned home without his bride-to-be, alarm bells rang, causing police to begin investigating the woman’s vanishing.
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You can watch the trailer for the new three-part Netflix documentary below:
American Murder: Gabby Petito, which debuted on the platform on Monday (February 17), includes intimate interviews with family and friends, many of who launched a missing person's campaign on September 11 2021.
It also uses excerpts from Gabby’s journal and her private text messages sent during some of her final moments to give a more personal feel to the docuseries.
However, in a move that’s been slammed online, the programme has used Artificial Intelligence (AI) voice recreation software to bring the victim’s diary and messages to life.
Viewers discovered that AI had been used after reading a note on the first episode, ‘We Bought a Van’.
“Gabby Petito’s journal entries and text messages are brought to life in this series in her own voice, using voice recreation technology,” the notice said.
True crime fans have since flocked to social media to have their say, with one Redditor writing: “I didn’t even realise they did that and yeah I think it’s lame to put words in her mouth that she didn’t actually speak, especially since she can’t give consent… documentaries aren’t supposed to be fictional.”
A second commented: “When they put the warning on the screen before they started with the AI voice I paused it and said ‘No’ out loud. I just don’t feel it was the best way to go about that. Definitely could have shown journal entries they way they showed text messages previously.”
“I also felt like that was kind of gross and disrespectful to the victim,” replied someone else.
However, other viewers have claimed the AI-generated voice helped to amplify Petito’s story.
One Reddit user claimed: “I think it was fine - mainly because I think this documentary heavily involved her parent’s input. That made me feel better about it!”
Someone else echoed: “I don’t understand these comments calling it disrespectful. Obviously her family approved of it, who are you to judge what’s right and wrong with how they deal with the telling of their daughter's story??”
In the wake of the doc’s release, filmmakers Julia Willoughby Nason and Michael Gasparro have defended their AI usage.
“We had so much material from her parents that we were able to get. All of her journals since she was young and there was so much of her writing. She documented her trips and most of her life from a young age. We thought it was really important to bring that to life,” Gaasparro confessed to US Weekly.
"At the end of the day, we wanted to tell the story as much through Gabby as possible. It’s her story.”
It’s also been confirmed that the former content creator’s guardians gave the creatives permission to recreate their daughter’s voice.
“We reached out to the family to get their blessing and then we worked diligently to represent it in exactly how it was written,” Gasparro continued
“That allowed you to hear it through her own words.”
Nason added that the victim’s parents gave them access to their daughter’s ‘personal archive of video and archive’ which allowed them to bring Petito to life ‘through her own perspective’.
“I was just in awe of Gabby and how industrious she was around building this YouTube channel and this focus on her career,” she said.
“She was such a talented artist and designer. She really created that world from top to bottom. I was in awe and that was something to admire. It was inspiring to see how high-functioning she was.”
LADbible Group has previously contacted Netflix for comment.
Topics: Crime, Documentaries, Gabby Petito, Netflix, TV, True Crime, Artificial Intelligence, Social Media
Ella Scott