Robin Williams' daughter Zelda has criticised the "disturbing" use of artificial intelligence (AI) to recreate her late father's voice and other actors who cannot consent to it.
As reported by Deadline, Zelda recently took to Instagram Stories to add her voice to the Screen Actors Guild's (SAG) fight against AI. In particular, she condemned the practice of AI recreations and dubbed the use of the technology to recreate her dad Robin Williams' voice "for years" a "horrendous Frankensteinian monster".
"I am not an impartial voice in SAG's fight against AI," Zelda wrote in a lengthy statement shared on Instagram over the weekend. "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."
Robin Williams died by suicide in 2014 aged 63 after battling anxiety, depression, and Parkinson's disease. An autopsy revealed he also had Lewy Body Dementia.
Zelda added: "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.
"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."
It is no secret that protections against artificial intelligence-based technology using actors' likenesses without their consent or compensation is one of the big sticking points for the unions representing writers and actors, with both parties looking to secure regulations around the use of AI, among several other issues.
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has since ended their historic five-month strike and made a tentative deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). SAG-AFTRA remains on the picket lines and will restart negotiations with Hollywood studios this week in the hope of reaching an agreement.
As Hollywood continues to grapple with the rise of AI, more and more people have spoken out on the subject, with Tim Burton slamming AI-generated art, a WandaVision background actor raising concerns over the use of "digital replicas", and James Cameron warning of the potential dangers it could present in the future.
Image credit: Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images
Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.
