A café in Messini, Peloponnese, is facing criticism for using an artificial intelligence (AI)-generated image of the late television host Giorgos Papadakis in an advertisement, showing him enjoying coffee “from the gates of heaven” just days after his death.
Papadakis, one of Greece’s most familiar TV presenters, died earlier this month at age 74 after more than four decades on screen. He hosted the morning news program “Kalimera Ellada” (Good Morning, Greece) on Antenna TV from 1992 until his retirement last year.
Morning show host Giorgos Liagas, who worked alongside Papadakis at the same broadcaster, denounced the ad on live television. “I find it unethical, unacceptable, extreme, and perverse,” Liagas said during his program “To Proino.”
‘It’s just humor. I put him in heaven, not in hell to suffer’
Speaking live on the same show, café owner Dionysis Sotiropoulos defended the campaign, calling it both humorous and a tribute. “I am the ‘moral instigator.’ My mind is neither perverse nor paranoid. We consider him a television father of our generation. It’s just humor,” he said. “I put him in heaven, not in hell to suffer.”
According to Antenna TV, the café had previously run a similar AI-based advertisement featuring Pope Francis.
Sotiropoulos said he would take down the controversial ad following the backlash.