Tom Hanks Tells Followers to ‘Beware’ AI Video Promoting Dental Plan: ‘I Have Nothing to Do with It’
The two-time Oscar winner previously spoke out about how there will soon be a need to protect actors’ likenesses
The two-time Oscar winner previously spoke out about how there will soon be a need to protect actors’ likenesses as intellectual property due to the rising use of AI in Hollywood
Tom Hanks wants everyone to know that he is not involved with the AI version of himself circulating around the Internet.
On Saturday, the two-time Academy Award-winning actor, 67, warned his followers on Instagram about a promotional video for a dental plan using a computer-generated image of him.
“BEWARE!! There’s a video out there promoting some dental plan with an AI version of me. I have nothing to do with it,” Hanks wrote over the photo of his AI counterpart from the clip.
The Elvis star has previously spoken about the growing use of artificial intelligence in the creative industries, saying on an episode of The Adam Buxton Podcast in May that “this has always been lingering.”
“The first time we did a movie that had a huge amount of our own data locked in a computer — literally what we looked like — was a movie called The Polar Express,” he explained, referencing his work in the 2004 Christmas animated film.
“We saw this coming,” he continued. “We saw that there was going to be this ability to take zeros and ones inside a computer and turn it into a face and a character. Now that has only grown a billionfold since then, and we see it everywhere.”
As a result, The Forest Gump actor said the ability to use AI in movies and TV shows will become a major negotiation point in actors’ contracts, as there will be a need to protect their likenesses as intellectual property.
“I can tell you that there [are] discussions going on in all of the guilds, all of the agencies, and all of the legal firms to come up with the legal ramifications of my face and my voice — and everybody else’s — being our intellectual property,” Hanks said before the SAG-AFTRA began striking for their new contracts with protections against the impact of AI on their work.
“What is a bona fide possibility right now, if I wanted to, [is] I could get together and pitch a series of seven movies that would star me in them in which I would be 32 years old from now until kingdom come,” he added.
“Anybody can now recreate themselves at any age they are, by way of AI or deep fake technology… I could be hit by a bus tomorrow and that’s it, but my performances can go on and on and on,” Hanks noted. “Outside of the understanding that it’s been done by AI or deep fake, there’ll be nothing to tell you that it’s not me and me alone, and it’s going to have some degree of lifelike quality.”
By Alexis Jones
Photo: Getty
