Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda has slammed the use of artificial intelligence to recreate her late father’s voice, describing it as “disturbing.”
AI has been a hot topic in the TV and movie industry of late, ever since the Writers’ Guild of America went on strike – which has since ended – and the actors’ union followed suit.
One of the main points of contention is the use of AI to replace human writers and performers, with the unions calling for wage increases in the streaming era and more protection when it comes to the use of AI technology.
Many industry figures have weighed in on the debate, with Zelda Williams, the daughter of the late comedian and actor, being the latest to offer her thoughts on AI’s influence in Hollywood.
Zelda Williams slams “disturbing” AI recreation of Robin Williams’ voice
In light of the ongoing actors strike, Zelda Williams took to her Instagram Stories to share a statement about how AI was used to recreate her late father’s voice.
“I am not an impartial voice in SAG’s fight against AI,” she wrote. “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.”
Zelda continued: “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.
“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.
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“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.”
Zelda’s thoughts arrive after numerous background actors have come forward to say that they were made to undergo scans for a digital likeness to be created of them.
Alexandria Rubalcaba previously claimed that she was one of a group of WandaVision background actors whose faces and bodies were scanned by Disney without their consent.
The company then created digital replicas of the actors, although Rubalcaba said they were never told how they will be used in the future – all they know is they won’t be getting paid if it is ever used, making her fearful that the plan is to “weed out background actors.”
Although SAG-AFTRA is still striking, the WGA has reached an agreement with the major Hollywood studios – you can read more about what happens next here.
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