\n<\/p>\n
Zelda Williams, the daughter of the late actor and comedian Robin Williams, has spoken out against AI-generated content featuring her father.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad,\u201d Zelda wrote in an Instagram story on Monday. \u201cStop believing I wanna see it or that I\u2019ll understand, I don\u2019t and I won\u2019t. If you\u2019re just trying to troll me, I\u2019ve seen way worse, I\u2019ll restrict and move on. But please, if you\u2019ve got any decency, just stop doing this to him and to me, to everyone even, full stop. It\u2019s dumb, it\u2019s a waste of time and energy, and believe me, it\u2019s NOT what he\u2019d want.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo watch the legacies of real people be condensed down to \u2018this vaguely looks and sounds like them so that\u2019s enough\u2019, just so other people can churn out horrible TikTok slop puppeteering them is maddening.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not making art, you\u2019re making disgusting, over-processed hotdogs out of the lives of human beings, out of the history of art and music, and then shoving them down someone else\u2019s throat hoping they\u2019ll give you a little thumbs up and like it. Gross.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd for the love of EVERYTHING, stop calling it \u2018the future,\u2019 AI is just badly recycling and regurgitating the past to be re-consumed. You are taking in the Human Centipede of content, and from the very very end of the line, all while the folks at the front laugh and laugh, consume and consume.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/span>Robin Williams and Zelda at the 2006 premiere of his film RV. <\/span> Photograph: Mario Anzuoni\/REUTERS<\/p>\n It is not the first time Zelda Williams, an actor and film-maker who directed 2024 horror comedy Lisa Frankenstein, has called out AI recreations of her father, who died in 2014 aged 63. In 2023, in an Instagram post supporting the Screen Actors Guild\u2019s campaign against AI, she wrote, \u201cI\u2019ve witnessed for YEARS how many people want to train these models to create\/recreate actors who cannot consent, like Dad. This isn\u2019t theoretical, it is very very real.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve already heard AI used to get his \u2018voice\u2019 to say whatever people want and while I find it personally disturbing, the ramifications go far beyond my own feelings.<\/p>\n \u201cThese recreations are, at their very best, a poor facsimile of greater people, but at their worst, a horrendous Frankensteinian monster, cobbled together from the worst bits of everything this industry is, instead of what it should stand for.\u201d<\/p>\n Williams\u2019 latest post comes as celebrity deepfakes continue to proliferate across social media, in everything from pornographic and political content to scams and advertising.<\/p>\n In January, actor Scarlett Johansson warned of the \u201cimminent dangers of AI\u201d after a deepfake video of her and other prominent Jewish celebrities including Jerry Seinfeld, Drake and Adam Sandler, speaking out against antisemitic comments made by Kanye West, went viral.<\/p>\n In August, a scam ad featuring a deepfake of Crowded House frontman Neil Finn falsely talking about erectile dysfunction went viral, prompting the band to issue a disclaimer.<\/p>\n The Robin Williams deepfakes are part of a broader trend of AI slop \u2013 low-quality content generated for entertainment \u2013 fuelled by the rapid growth of free-to-use generative AI apps.<\/p>\n Several recent videos of Robin Williams on TikTok appear to have been created using OpenAI\u2019s new video generator app, Sora 2, including a fake ad for Apple and an awards ceremony interaction between the comedian and the late Betty White.<\/p>\n Within a few days of launching, Sora\u2019s feed was flooded with videos featuring copyrighted characters from shows such as SpongeBob SquarePants, South Park, Pok\u00e9mon and Rick and Morty.<\/p>\n OpenAI told the Guardian that content owners can flag copyright infringement using a \u201ccopyright disputes form\u201d but that individual artists or studios cannot have a blanket opt-out. Varun Shetty, OpenAI\u2019s head of media partnerships, said: \u201cWe\u2019ll work with rights holders to block characters from Sora at their request and respond to takedown requests.\u201d<\/p>\n