Zelda Williams, the daughter of iconic actor Robin Williams, has once again expressed her discontent with the use of artificial intelligence to recreate her father’s voice and image, who passed away in 2014. Through her Instagram stories, Zelda called on her followers to stop sending her AI-generated videos that attempt to revive the legendary comedian, labeling this practice as “disrespectful” and “disturbing.”
A disrespect to recreate the image of a deceased person with AI
“Please stop sending me AI-generated videos of dad,” wrote Zelda, who also criticized how these digital recreations reduce real people to mere imitations. “Seeing how the legacy of real people is condensed into ‘this looks and sounds vaguely like them, so that’s enough’, just so others can produce a horrible piece of TikTok, manipulating them, is frustrating,” she stated.
The director of the romantic comedy Lisa Frankenstein emphasized that AI technology does not represent artistic progress and highlighted the importance of actors’ consent in the creation of characters and art. “You are not making art, you are creating over-processed content with the lives of human beings, with the history of art and music,” Zelda added, emphasizing that such imitations blur the essence of what artistic creation should be.
This is not the first time that Zelda has expressed her concerns about this issue. In 2023, during the actors’ strike that addressed the recreation of characters through AI, the filmmaker argued that “live actors deserve the opportunity to create characters with their own choices.” According to her, these recreations are at best “a poor imitation” and at worst, a “horrendous Frankenstein monster” that distorts the entertainment industry.
