It was revealed that an advertiser used a deepfake of Tom Hanks to promote dental insurance without the actor’s permission. Hanks shared a warning on Instagram and warned his followers about the video created by artificial intelligence, which he wrote that he had nothing to do with.
Just last spring, Hanks appeared on The Adam Buxton Podcast and said that artificial intelligence and deepfakes pose both artistic and legal challenges. He also talked about a hypothetical scenario where an entire movie franchise could be made using a 32-year-old AI version of himself. Perhaps as a confirmation of what was to come, the disturbing dental insurance ad makes Hanks look quite young.
A post shared by Tom Hanks (@tomhanks)
The use of artificial intelligence to exploit celebrities’ legacies has already become an ethical issue. Just this weekend, Robin Williams’ daughter, Zelda Williams, posted on Instagram supporting SAG’s fight against artificial intelligence.
Hanks said in an interview in April that the issue had been on his radar since the early 2000s movie The Polar Express, which featured a CGI version of the actor. Hanks told Buxton that “it’s the first time we’ve made a movie where a large amount of our own data is locked in a computer.”
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