Zelda William, daughter of late actor Robin Williams, has requested fans to stop sending her AI-generated videos of her father.
Williams, one of America’s most adored actors and star of Mrs Doubtfire and Dead Poets Society, died by suicide in 2014 at the age of 63. In the months leading up to Williams’ death, he had been struggling with health issues after being misdiagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and his autopsy revealed he had Lewy body dementia, an incurable brain disease that causes trouble sleeping, hallucinations, and loss of motor actions, amongst other symptoms.
In a social media post, the Lisa Frankenstein director said it was a “waste of time and energy” to send her content that featured digitally generated likenesses of Williams because it would not be something he’d want.
“Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad. Stop believing I wanna see it or that I'll understand, I don’t and I won’t,” Williams wrote on her Instagram Stories on Monday. “If you’re just trying to troll me, I’ve seen way worse, I’ll restrict and move on. But please, if you’ve got any decency, just stop doing this to him and to me, to everyone even, full stop. It’s dumb, it’s a waste of time and energy, and believe me, it’s NOT what he'd want.
“To watch the legacies of real people be condensed down to ‘this vaguely looks and sounds like them so that's enough’, just so other people can churn out horrible TikTok slop puppeteering them is maddening.”
She continued: “You’re not making art, you’re 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’s throat hoping they'll give you a little thumbs up and like it. Gross.”
Williams ended her statement refusing to refer to AI as “the future”.
“AI is just badly recycling and regurgitating the past to be reconsumed. 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.”
Her comments come a few months after Mrs Doubtfire star Matthew Lawrence, who played Robin Williams’ onscreen son in the film, said he would “love” to revive Williams’s voice using artificial intelligence software.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly at Comic-Con in July this year, Lawrence said “with the respect and with the OK” from Williams’s family, he would love to “do something really special” with the actor’s voice.
“I know for a generation, that voice is just so iconic. It’s not just the fact that I knew him and worked with him and so it’s in my head – it’s in everybody’s head. And it would be so cool,” he said.
Williams lent his voice to numerous animated films throughout his career, taking on the role of the Genie in Disney’s Aladdin in 1992, Fender Pinwheeler in Robots in 2005, and Ramon and Lovelace in Happy Feet in 2006.
This is not the first time Williams has slammed the use of AI to create likenesses of people without their permission.
Responding to the 2023 Hollywood actors’ strike, which was partly over the use of Artificial Intelligence in the industry, Williams posted on her Instagram Story: “I am not an impartial voice in SAG’s fight against AI. I’ve witnessed for YEARS how many people want to train these models to create/recreate actors who cannot consent, like Dad.
“This isn’t theoretical, it is very very real. I’ve already heard AI used to get his ‘voice’ to say whatever people want and while I find it personally disturbing, the ramifications go far beyond my own feelings.”
She added: “Living actors deserve a chance to create characters with their choices, to voice cartoons, to put their HUMAN effort and time into the pursuit of performance.
“These 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.”
Since the launch of OpenAI’s new video tool Sora 2, social media platforms have been flooded with AI-generated videos featuring deceased celebrities like Michael Jackson and Williams. A fake advertisement for Apple, as well as a fabricated awards show interaction with the late Betty White, have been seen on TikTok, reported The Guardian.
Earlier this year, actress Scarlett Johansson raised an alarm about the “imminent dangers of AI” following the spread of a deepfake video in which she, alongside other Jewish celebrities like Jerry Seinfeld, Drake, and Adam Sandler, were shown giving Kanye West the finger.
If you are experiencing feelings of distress, or are struggling to cope, you can speak to the Samaritans, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of your nearest branch.
If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call the National Suicide Prevention Helpline on 1-800-273-TALK (8255). This is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you.
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