Actor and comedian Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda has come forward to speak out against AI-generated videos featuring her father, calling it a dumb and gross move. She asked people not to send her the AI-generated videos.
Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda hits out
Recently, Zelda took to her Instagram Story to ask people to stop sending her AI-generated videos of her father. The iconic comedian died by suicide in 2014 at the age of 63.
“Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad,” Zelda wrote in her note.
She added, “Stop believing I wanna see it or that I’ll understand, I don’t and I won’t. 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.”
In fact, the filmmaker lashed out at people for opting for artificial intelligence to play with “legacies of real people”.
She said, “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”.
“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,” she added.
Zelda concluded, “And for the love of EVERY THING, stop calling it ‘the future,’ 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.”
Hollywood takes a stand against AI
Zelda’s angry note comes just days after many artists in the entertainment industry, as well as the SAG-AFTRA union, pushed back against Tilly Norwood, an actor created with AI by Xicoia, a production company. In a statement, SAG said that “creativity is, and should remain, human-centered” and that they oppose “the replacement of human performers by synthetics.” In January, actor Scarlett Johansson warned of the “imminent dangers of AI” after a deepfake video of her went viral.
This is not the first time Zelda has asked for people to reconsider their use of AI, especially when it comes to her father’s image. In 2023, she took to Instagram to express her support for SAG’s fight against AI, writing, “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.”
