Robin Williams' daughter Zelda says AI recreations of her dad are 'personally disturbing': 'The worst bits of everything this industry is'
Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda says AI recreations of her dad are ‘personally disturbing’::Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda says AI recreations of her dad are ‘personally disturbing’: ‘The worst bits of everything this industry is’
you love good will hunting, you’re going thru a tough time, and you use AI to have robin williams say something gentle and therapist-y that directly applies to you and your situation – is this wrong?
Seeing Tupac’s hologram perform to a cheering crowd was when it crossed the line in to creepy for me. A lot of people seem turned off by this at least, and it’s really exposing how these studios think of people. I think this could turn in to a thing where the studios really push these personality constructs, while many actors and the public will be morally opposed to it. So the studios might have to appeal to a moral justification for when it’s appropriate to use these AI constructs, like, “we really wanted to honor Robin with this project that we felt carried on his legacy, and a percentage of proceeds will go to the good foundation to help other’s who suffer like Robin did, so seeing Robin’s personality construct perform for you is really a moral duty and helps make the world a better place.” Also anywhere AI isn’t noticeable to the viewer, for the cost savings and avoiding the negative reaction to it.
I think there will be studios producing fully AI-driven content though. They’ll be like low budget and corny, a diarrhea level of quantity and quality. Not unlike those campy dramatized skits on YouTube now where it’s like, “homeless girl steals a rich man’s heart, will make you cry.” They’ll be these ultra-niche AI generated shorts that are a mix of advertisement and generic story arc. The AI spam is already pretty hilarious, “Elon has an invention that can make anyone a millionaire in 30 days.” I think we’re about to witness a dearth of content so shitty that no present day comparison could describe.
Man you really don’t have shit else to do, do you?
Like seriously how fucking empty is your life that you can’t bring yourself to do anything but troll online?
You realize you aren’t getting that time back either, right?
EDIT: Shocker, when called out right at the outset, this giant fucking pussy just bails. Nice job being an epic master troll you absolute fucking idiot. Just like all giant pussies who like to troll, he can bring the fire but can’t stand the heat.
Agreed, we desperately need regulations on who has the right to reproduce another person’s image/voice/likeness. I know that there will always be people on the internet who do it anyway, but international copyright laws still mostly work in spite of that, so I imagine that regulations on this type of AI would mostly work as well.
We’re really in the Wild West of machine learning right now. It’s beautiful and terrifying all at the same time.
yeah i don’t think it should be legislated against, especially for private use [people will always work around it anyway], but using it for profit is really, viscerally wrong
You know I’m not generally a defender of intellectual property, but I don’t think in this case “not legislating because people will work around it” is a good idea. Or ever, really. It’s because people will try to work around laws to take advantage of people that laws need to be updated.
It’s not just about celebrities, or even just about respect towards dead people. In this case, what if somebody takes the voice of a family member of yours to scam your family or harass them? This technology can lead to unprecedented forms of abuse.
In light of that, I can’t even mourn the loss of making an AI Robin Willians talk to you because it’s fun.
It would be a shame to lose valuable things like there I ruined it, which seem to be a perfectly fair use of copyrighted works. Copyright is already too strong.
Copyright IS too strong, but paradoxically artists’ rights are too weak. Everything is aimed to boost the profits of media companies, but not protect the people who make them. Now they are under threat of being replaced by AI trained on their own works, no less. Is it really worth it to defend AI if we end up with less novel human works because of it?
We need something like the fair use doctrine coupled with identify rights.
If you want to use X’s voice and likeness in something, you have to purchase that privilege from X or X’s estate, and they can tell you to pay them massive fees or to fuck off.
Fair use would be exclusively for comedy, but still face regulation. There’s plenty of hilarious TikToks that use AI to make characters say stupid shit, but we can find a way to protect voice actors and creators without stifling creativity. Fair use would still require the person’s permission, you just wouldn’t need to pay to use it for such a minor thing – a meme of Mickey Mouse saying fuck for example.
At the end of the day though, people need to hold the exclusive and ultimate right to how their likeness and voice are used, and they need to be able to shut down anything they deem unacceptable. Too many people are concerned with what is capable than with acting like an asshole. It’s just common kindness to ask someone if you can use their voice for something, and respecting their wishes if they don’t want it.
I don’t know if this is a hot take or not, but I’ll stand by it either way – using AI to emulate someone without their permission is a fundamental violation of their rights and privacy. If OpenAI or whoever wants to claim that makes their product unusable, tough fucking luck. Every technology has faced regulations to maintain our rights, and if a company can’t survive without unbridled regulations, it deserves to die.
IMO people doing it on their own for fun/expression is different than corporations doing it for profit, and there’s no real way to stop that. I think if famous AI constructs become part of big media productions, it will come with a constructed moral justification for it. The system will basically internalize and commodify the repulsion to itself exploiting the likeness of dead (or alive) actors. This could be media that blurs the line and proports to ask “deep questions” about exploiting people, while exploiting people as a sort of intentional irony. Or it will be more like a moral appeal to sentimentality, “in honor of their legacy we are exploiting their image, some proceeds will support causes they cared about, we are doing this to spread awareness, the issue they are representing are too important, they would have loved this project, we’ve worked closely with their estate.” Eventually there’s going to be a film like this, complete with teary-eyed behind-the-scenes interviews about how emotional it was to reproduce the likeness of the actor and what an honor it was. As soon as the moral justification can be made and the actor’s image can be constructed just well enough. People will go see it so they can comment on what they thought about it and take part in the cultural moment.
Hate it all you want. There’s a buck to be made by our owners, so it will proceed.
Humanity at large is literally letting humanity’s owner class destroy our species’ only habitat, Earth, in the name of further growing their ego scores in the form of short term profit.
Who gives a shit about them stealing a dead celebrity’s voice in the face of that? The hyper-rich stealing IP from the regular rich is wrong and should be illegal, but is clearly pretty far down the totem pole. Let’s say we put all our effort into stopping them from doing that and win. We’re still terraforming the planet to be less hospitable to human life, Zelda Williams included.
Priorities, can we have them? And no we can’t “do both,” because we have had no success stopping the owner class from doing anything that hurts others to further enrich themselves. I’m for putting all our effort into our species still being able to feed itself and having enough fresh water.
Extremely anti post-modern-organic bias you seem to have. If we dont fill space with plastic and heat it enough, then HOW exactly do you propose we encourage establishing an entire Carbon-Polyethylene based evolutionary tree ?? 🌳
To be honest it is a bit creepy if it wasn’t from Robin Williams’ personality.
If you hear a message you brother left you is one thing. But listening to him taking when someone else is faking his voice and saying whatever they want.
That’s the only difference, those video recording where of you brother.
These deep-fake things are someone else speaking in your brother’s voice. A corporation using your brother to sell products and services.
I’m not sure what you mean. There’s nothing more consensual about photography necessarily. Paparazzi are a thing, for example.
I think the real difference here is that we understand video and audio recordings, we even have some laws governing when you can record someone. So we are comfortable with those technologies. Above all, we’re used to them.
AI isn’t the exact same thing but I think the main source of discomfort is its newness and mysteriousness. We don’t have laws governing it. We don’t understand it very well. This makes it creepy.
Let’s say one of your parents dies and years later you stumble upon a voice recording that your sibling made of them. Your heart would probably be warmed just to hear their voice. It wouldn’t change that if you realized that your brother had recorded them from behind without their knowledge. You’d still be comfortable with that representation of your father.
Another example: there are services which can take an old photo of a dead relative and turn it into a sort of “Harry Potter moving picture” kind of deal, using deepfake technology. Most people are amazed and touched in a positive way when they see these.
I think someday when AI is much more mundane to us, someone out there will take old voice recordings of their long lost father, train an AI bot on them, and present it as a gift to their sibling. That sibling will have a conversation with it, and their eye will mist up, and they’ll say thank you this is so touching and wonderful.
It’s merely a question of being comfortable with the technology itself.
I think consent is the most important discussion here. The people that continue to profit (monetarily or otherwise) off dead creators are often looked down upon, eg. Brian Herbert’s Dune continuation, Stephen Hillenberg’s death and continuation of spongebob (and it’s spin offs), etc. Terry Pratchett had in his will to use a steamroller to destroy all his unfinished works as he knew if not they would likely be used to profit after his death without him.
I’m a proponent of the recent advances in machine learning, I use machine learning in my field and I write and use models for hobby level things. I’m also fully a proponent of using these things ethically, and consent here is the most important thing.
If I created a doctored photograph of Robin Williams (even doing something innocuous) that was clearly not something he did and plastered it around the internet it would be in bad taste. If Robin Williams consented to people doing that then sure whatever its nbd. Photographs and recordings should be used with consent, and things like the paparazzi taking non consensual photos are not looked upon as particularly ethical endeavors.
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imaginary scenario:
you love good will hunting, you’re going thru a tough time, and you use AI to have robin williams say something gentle and therapist-y that directly applies to you and your situation – is this wrong?
Ask Tom Waits…
Seeing Tupac’s hologram perform to a cheering crowd was when it crossed the line in to creepy for me. A lot of people seem turned off by this at least, and it’s really exposing how these studios think of people. I think this could turn in to a thing where the studios really push these personality constructs, while many actors and the public will be morally opposed to it. So the studios might have to appeal to a moral justification for when it’s appropriate to use these AI constructs, like, “we really wanted to honor Robin with this project that we felt carried on his legacy, and a percentage of proceeds will go to the good foundation to help other’s who suffer like Robin did, so seeing Robin’s personality construct perform for you is really a moral duty and helps make the world a better place.” Also anywhere AI isn’t noticeable to the viewer, for the cost savings and avoiding the negative reaction to it.
I think there will be studios producing fully AI-driven content though. They’ll be like low budget and corny, a diarrhea level of quantity and quality. Not unlike those campy dramatized skits on YouTube now where it’s like, “homeless girl steals a rich man’s heart, will make you cry.” They’ll be these ultra-niche AI generated shorts that are a mix of advertisement and generic story arc. The AI spam is already pretty hilarious, “Elon has an invention that can make anyone a millionaire in 30 days.” I think we’re about to witness a dearth of content so shitty that no present day comparison could describe.
Get used to it. Best case stuff like this gets covered commercially. Nobody is going to be able to regulate what individuals can do.
I’m byproduct of his sperm so my opinion counts !@!@!!
Man you really don’t have shit else to do, do you?
Like seriously how fucking empty is your life that you can’t bring yourself to do anything but troll online?
You realize you aren’t getting that time back either, right?
EDIT: Shocker, when called out right at the outset, this giant fucking pussy just bails. Nice job being an epic master troll you absolute fucking idiot. Just like all giant pussies who like to troll, he can bring the fire but can’t stand the heat.
Disturbing is an understatement. I’d call them repulsive. Relatives should be the only ones with this power, if at all.
Sure as shit not corporations. Fuck.
Agreed, we desperately need regulations on who has the right to reproduce another person’s image/voice/likeness. I know that there will always be people on the internet who do it anyway, but international copyright laws still mostly work in spite of that, so I imagine that regulations on this type of AI would mostly work as well.
We’re really in the Wild West of machine learning right now. It’s beautiful and terrifying all at the same time.
yeah i don’t think it should be legislated against, especially for private use [people will always work around it anyway], but using it for profit is really, viscerally wrong
You know I’m not generally a defender of intellectual property, but I don’t think in this case “not legislating because people will work around it” is a good idea. Or ever, really. It’s because people will try to work around laws to take advantage of people that laws need to be updated.
It’s not just about celebrities, or even just about respect towards dead people. In this case, what if somebody takes the voice of a family member of yours to scam your family or harass them? This technology can lead to unprecedented forms of abuse.
In light of that, I can’t even mourn the loss of making an AI Robin Willians talk to you because it’s fun.
It would be a shame to lose valuable things like there I ruined it, which seem to be a perfectly fair use of copyrighted works. Copyright is already too strong.
Copyright IS too strong, but paradoxically artists’ rights are too weak. Everything is aimed to boost the profits of media companies, but not protect the people who make them. Now they are under threat of being replaced by AI trained on their own works, no less. Is it really worth it to defend AI if we end up with less novel human works because of it?
We need something like the fair use doctrine coupled with identify rights.
If you want to use X’s voice and likeness in something, you have to purchase that privilege from X or X’s estate, and they can tell you to pay them massive fees or to fuck off.
Fair use would be exclusively for comedy, but still face regulation. There’s plenty of hilarious TikToks that use AI to make characters say stupid shit, but we can find a way to protect voice actors and creators without stifling creativity. Fair use would still require the person’s permission, you just wouldn’t need to pay to use it for such a minor thing – a meme of Mickey Mouse saying fuck for example.
At the end of the day though, people need to hold the exclusive and ultimate right to how their likeness and voice are used, and they need to be able to shut down anything they deem unacceptable. Too many people are concerned with what is capable than with acting like an asshole. It’s just common kindness to ask someone if you can use their voice for something, and respecting their wishes if they don’t want it.
I don’t know if this is a hot take or not, but I’ll stand by it either way – using AI to emulate someone without their permission is a fundamental violation of their rights and privacy. If OpenAI or whoever wants to claim that makes their product unusable, tough fucking luck. Every technology has faced regulations to maintain our rights, and if a company can’t survive without unbridled regulations, it deserves to die.
This was very well stated, and I wholeheartedly agree.
IMO people doing it on their own for fun/expression is different than corporations doing it for profit, and there’s no real way to stop that. I think if famous AI constructs become part of big media productions, it will come with a constructed moral justification for it. The system will basically internalize and commodify the repulsion to itself exploiting the likeness of dead (or alive) actors. This could be media that blurs the line and proports to ask “deep questions” about exploiting people, while exploiting people as a sort of intentional irony. Or it will be more like a moral appeal to sentimentality, “in honor of their legacy we are exploiting their image, some proceeds will support causes they cared about, we are doing this to spread awareness, the issue they are representing are too important, they would have loved this project, we’ve worked closely with their estate.” Eventually there’s going to be a film like this, complete with teary-eyed behind-the-scenes interviews about how emotional it was to reproduce the likeness of the actor and what an honor it was. As soon as the moral justification can be made and the actor’s image can be constructed just well enough. People will go see it so they can comment on what they thought about it and take part in the cultural moment.
Capitalism literally Weekend at Berniesing the corpse of Robin Williams for profit.
This is fine
This gives me Michael Jackson hologram vibes
At least that was just smoke screen trickery and not literal digital necromancy
Almost 10 years without him. He was so great. This should not be his legacy.
If there is any celebrity that I hold dear, it’s Robin Williams.
Kind of a mean thing to say about her dad
But it’s not her dad so I don’t get wym
The bad joke is that she’d be calling them disturbing not because it’s fucked up, but because she thinks her dad is ugly.
Hate it all you want. There’s a buck to be made by our owners, so it will proceed.
Humanity at large is literally letting humanity’s owner class destroy our species’ only habitat, Earth, in the name of further growing their ego scores in the form of short term profit.
Who gives a shit about them stealing a dead celebrity’s voice in the face of that? The hyper-rich stealing IP from the regular rich is wrong and should be illegal, but is clearly pretty far down the totem pole. Let’s say we put all our effort into stopping them from doing that and win. We’re still terraforming the planet to be less hospitable to human life, Zelda Williams included.
Priorities, can we have them? And no we can’t “do both,” because we have had no success stopping the owner class from doing anything that hurts others to further enrich themselves. I’m for putting all our effort into our species still being able to feed itself and having enough fresh water.
Extremely anti post-modern-organic bias you seem to have. If we dont fill space with plastic and heat it enough, then HOW exactly do you propose we encourage establishing an entire Carbon-Polyethylene based evolutionary tree ?? 🌳
This is such a random thought and I don’t mean to conclude anything by it:
I’ll bet people felt this way about the very first audio recordings.
How creepy to hear your sibling’s voice when that sibling is not even in the room!
…and moving pictures:
It looks like your mother is right there but she’s been dead for 10 years! Gah!
To be honest it is a bit creepy if it wasn’t from Robin Williams’ personality.
If you hear a message you brother left you is one thing. But listening to him taking when someone else is faking his voice and saying whatever they want.
That’s the only difference, those video recording where of you brother.
These deep-fake things are someone else speaking in your brother’s voice. A corporation using your brother to sell products and services.
Nothing to do with him and his personality
deleted by creator
I’m not sure what you mean. There’s nothing more consensual about photography necessarily. Paparazzi are a thing, for example.
I think the real difference here is that we understand video and audio recordings, we even have some laws governing when you can record someone. So we are comfortable with those technologies. Above all, we’re used to them.
AI isn’t the exact same thing but I think the main source of discomfort is its newness and mysteriousness. We don’t have laws governing it. We don’t understand it very well. This makes it creepy.
deleted by creator
Let’s say one of your parents dies and years later you stumble upon a voice recording that your sibling made of them. Your heart would probably be warmed just to hear their voice. It wouldn’t change that if you realized that your brother had recorded them from behind without their knowledge. You’d still be comfortable with that representation of your father.
Another example: there are services which can take an old photo of a dead relative and turn it into a sort of “Harry Potter moving picture” kind of deal, using deepfake technology. Most people are amazed and touched in a positive way when they see these.
I think someday when AI is much more mundane to us, someone out there will take old voice recordings of their long lost father, train an AI bot on them, and present it as a gift to their sibling. That sibling will have a conversation with it, and their eye will mist up, and they’ll say thank you this is so touching and wonderful.
It’s merely a question of being comfortable with the technology itself.
deleted by creator
I think consent is the most important discussion here. The people that continue to profit (monetarily or otherwise) off dead creators are often looked down upon, eg. Brian Herbert’s Dune continuation, Stephen Hillenberg’s death and continuation of spongebob (and it’s spin offs), etc. Terry Pratchett had in his will to use a steamroller to destroy all his unfinished works as he knew if not they would likely be used to profit after his death without him.
I’m a proponent of the recent advances in machine learning, I use machine learning in my field and I write and use models for hobby level things. I’m also fully a proponent of using these things ethically, and consent here is the most important thing.
If I created a doctored photograph of Robin Williams (even doing something innocuous) that was clearly not something he did and plastered it around the internet it would be in bad taste. If Robin Williams consented to people doing that then sure whatever its nbd. Photographs and recordings should be used with consent, and things like the paparazzi taking non consensual photos are not looked upon as particularly ethical endeavors.