The richest man on Earth is putting his money behind a cause that really matters: making a worse version of “The Odyssey” to appease right-wing cranks.
On Wednesday, Elon Musk shared a video created by an X user via the social media platform’s integrated generative AI, Grok. The clip showed a conversation between Odysseus and Calypso, a nymph who holds the mythical king on her island for several years. Musk said the clip was a preview of what could be done with his in-house AI, promising a full movie by the end of the year.
“Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer,” he said.
Nothing in the clip suggests that Grok’s take on the epic poem will be any more faithful than Nolan’s. Musk can be counted among the many conservatives who were angered by Nolan’s decision to cast Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy and Elliot Page as Sinon. Both Odysseus and Calypso were played by cisgender white actors in Nolan’s film (Matt Damon and Charlize Theron, respectively). This appears to be true in the Grok recreation.
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Elsewhere on X, Musk expressed support for the idea of hiring Mel Gibson to direct a version of “The Odyssey” entirely in Homeric Greek, with a focus on historical accuracy and fealty to Greek culture. The trouble, of course, is that the events of “The Odyssey” did not occur in history and the people they “happened” to would not have considered themselves Greek.
We’re not sure that any artificial intelligence that currently exists can solve that particular problem. What we’re likely to be left with is an adaptation that hits all of the beats of the hundreds of motion picture takes on the story with all of their charms and idiosyncrasies smoothed away.