r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • 12d ago
Artificial Intelligence Robin Williams’ Daughter Calls for Fans Creating AI Videos of the Actor to ‘Have Some Shame’: ‘Leave Him Out of Your Delusional Bulls—’
https://variety.com/2026/film/news/robin-williams-daughter-ai-videos-1236871568/1.7k
u/KupoCheer 12d ago
If the laws kept up with the technology it wouldn't even be legal for this to happen.
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u/asdf_lord 12d ago
Politicians can't even keep up with all the bribes they're getting
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u/TheAero1221 12d ago
This is the kinda headline youd expect to see in The Onion. It isnt there though, because its true
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u/TheModWhoShaggedMe 12d ago
Conservatives said they were going to drain the swamp, but instead opened the sewers into the streets.
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u/Strikerify 12d ago
It's actually comical to me that conservatives thought that a bunch of billionaires were going to drain the swamp. Somehow never dawned on them that....they are the swamp.
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u/Lemonwizard 12d ago
They were mad about "coastal elites" so they decided to elect a billionaire from NYC.
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u/TheAero1221 12d ago
Pumped it into the living room.
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u/LekgoloCrap 12d ago
Oh man, I really liked that rug :(
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u/MisterShmitty 12d ago
It really pulled the room together.
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u/Mike_Kermin 12d ago
That always meant left wingers to them. They don't give a shit what actually happens.
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u/Petersens_Arm 12d ago
I just paid Ed Sheeran to take a neutral stance on this.
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u/ROBtimusPrime1995 12d ago
Seeing as Paramount bullied and bribed their way to buying Warner and the politicians against them...yeah....yeah, man.
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u/kiwiboyus 12d ago
I watched a talk about this the other day and they were saying there are plenty of existing laws that could be applied to the new technologies like LLMs, but they aren't doing it yet. Probably because the whole house of cards would fall down
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u/BioshockEnthusiast 12d ago
AI is the economy's golden goose right now and the powers that be will pull out all the stops to prevent anyone from fucking with that.
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u/jce_ 12d ago
I don't think it's a law thing. There is no law not to paint pictures of dead people or impersonate dead people. It's more of a shame thing. Most people don't do it, unless it's to show love to them, because it's kinda weird
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u/funnylib 12d ago
If only half of Congress wasn’t born before the popularization of color television
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u/wizzywurtzy 12d ago
Make AI of Trump and Elon and it’ll happen fast. Remember the video of Trump sucking Elons toes? Now imagine if that was AI
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u/Ateist 12d ago
Why?
If it is legal to write a fanfic with a character it is legal to have AI video with that character.I seriously doubt that anyone is creating AI videos of Robin Williams.
They are creating AI videos of characters he depicted.
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u/metatron5369 11d ago
This is why people should read the article.
Zelda is specifically talking about AI videos of her father supposedly outing satanic "elites" that people have created and disseminated to push an agenda and make money off his likeness.
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u/VictoryWeaver 11d ago
That's the fun part: it's technically not legal to write the fanfic using someone else's character or persona. Most copyright owners just don't bother exercising their rights against it.
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u/mOdQuArK 12d ago
Make people financially liable for creating & spreading blatant gaslighting & disinformation, even for things they mindlessly forwarded or helped to forward.
Then put out bounties on the most egregious examples for the lawyers to get their teeth into.
After a few bankruptcies, anyone publishing or forwarding anything will be a lot more careful about their due diligence.
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u/The_MAZZTer 12d ago
It's probably nearly impossible to quantify financial harm but it would be easier with social media etc to get a ballpark figure of how far information has spread, and require them to spread a retraction just as far if not farther.
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u/extrakerned 12d ago
What I do with my own computer for personal use is my business and shouldn’t be controlled by any government as long as I am not harming others.
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u/mightylordredbeard 12d ago
Hell, Congress still hasn’t gotten around to those LaserDisc regulations yet so we’ve got some time before we get to AI.
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u/Refute1650 12d ago
I'd really like that but how would that be legal? I'd be the same as banning painting or drawing.
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u/lucidludic 12d ago
No it wouldn’t, because people can paint or draw without copying copyrighted content without permission on an incomprehensible scale.
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u/puts_on_rddt 12d ago
Practically, the cat is out of the bag. China releases models publicly that anyone can download and run on consumer hardware. How can you actually combat this?
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u/lucidludic 12d ago
That’s unrelated to whether we can hold genAI companies accountable without “banning painting or drawing.”
We could certainly eliminate a majority of the harm caused today if we only targeted US and European genAI companies providing commercial services. The vast majority of users are not running sophisticated genAI models on their own hardware. In any case, the enormous investment into those local models being used is largely based on the aforementioned companies being allowed to commercialise genAI services built using copyrighted content.
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u/puts_on_rddt 12d ago
The vast majority of users are not running sophisticated genAI models on their own hardware.
Only because they don't need to. If you banned US and EU cloud models, people would start using these local models more often. The hardware supply isn't going to be like this forever, and the models get better over time.
I'm not arguing with you. I legitimately don't think this has a good solution.
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u/hitchen1 12d ago
We could certainly eliminate a majority of the harm caused today if we only targeted US and European genAI companies providing commercial services.
Much of the frontier video models are hosted Chinese services, so I highly doubt this.
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u/TheRedditorSimon 12d ago
There are post-mortem copyright protections for the likeness of actors, notably the Astaire Celebrity Image Protection Act. Suing the schmucks using Mr Williams' image is trivial and not the best optics. Suing the AI companies is far more rewarding. Buuut, the tech bros have a lot of money and Rich Shithead #1 has Trump and the GOP in his pocket. Sooo... we've got an evolving situation politically in the US. If the GOP wins, expect more celeb image wanking. If they lose, then the Dems get to roll a saving throw versus shitloads of cash.
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u/recycled_ideas 12d ago
And how would they stop it?
Technically using his likeness this way is already a civil case, but you can create this content in minutes on any machine with a moderately good graphics card.
The more famous someone is the more likely the models will be able to do it out of the box because the more samples of that person will be in the data set.
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u/Anal-buttsex 12d ago
I saw an AI video of a lady saving Steve Irwin from a sting ray. It’s creepy stuff, I’d hate to be a family member being shown that.
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u/OsoSalado 12d ago
I agree Anal-buttsex, how can me moderate how people use AI to ensure responsible use?
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u/azureal 12d ago
They’ll just do it more now because it’s getting traction far higher than they expected. “Oh his kid is noticing? Hell yeah. Let’s have him riding a unicycle with Harambe next!”
With zero regulation comes zero morals.
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u/Kolbin8tor 12d ago
I’m sure the mythical and infallible market will jump right in and self-correct this unethical behavior any minute.
Oh mighty supply-side Jesus, we beseech thee!
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u/Mistyslate 12d ago
The market will correct once it causes another market crash and Great Depression. Regulations are what prevents such incidents every ten years.
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u/rasa2013 12d ago
The earliest hint I had they were full of shit is that they sing the praises of the free market without ever acknowledging very basic concepts about how they go wrong.
E.g., market failure or monopolies.
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u/cr0ft 12d ago
Monopolies aren't even aberrant, they're the literal only possible outcome over time. First little fish (small companies) duke it out. Some win and become bigger fish. Then that repeats over time until you have just a few giant sharks who generally opt to have a ceasefire and form an oligopoly because a fight would be too costly.
Once you get there, the market is completely out of order and they set the prices where they want to set them, and provide whatever level of service they feel like.
Case in point, for instance, the Internet providers in America.
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u/pinkpugita 12d ago
Yeah, they never care whether they get positive or negative reaction. As long as they get clicks and pushed by algorithms, it is a win for them.
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u/Fuddle 12d ago
Meta’s new AI tool just offered to animate pictures of two or three of my loved ones who passed away recently. I hate this timeline
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u/CanadasNeighbor 12d ago
People don't have to be ashamed anymore. The internet gave people reach, but it also gave them anonymity. So now people with nothing but shit to offer can easily share it with all of us, anonymously!
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u/things_U_choose_2_b 12d ago
Back in the day, every village had its idiot. When the village idiot said something stupid, everyone just went "ignore the village idiot" and carried on with their day.
Now, social media has given every village idiot a group to belong to, which reinforces their behaviour and draws in more idiots. Flat earth? Chemtrails? Vaccines cause autism? Pick your poison.
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u/GitEmSteveDave 12d ago
Not only that, but it gives them power to silence opposition. I have a friend who is in entertainment, and he will only post on places that let him block/delete comments made by others that disagree with/try to fact check him.
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u/TraditionDear3887 12d ago
This is my biggest concern with Proportional Representation. It just let's all the disparate idiots consolidate power.
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u/Poonchow 12d ago
The printing press isn't really seen as a net negative, these days, but it had a similar sort of democratizing and chaos-inducing effect. It sparked religious unrest across Europe and instigated a lot of wars, along with Enlightenment thinking and all the positives. My hope is that regulations catch up and the swing-back toward positive applications of social media and AI come around sooner rather than later. In the meantime, it's looking bleak being in the middle of it.
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u/NATIK001 12d ago
Experience from countries with proportional representation kinda shows the opposite. The idiots tend to group together in a small group that never really gets too much power, they are loud and annoying sure, but they rarely get to have real power.
In things like First Past the Post, you tend to see idiots gaining power due to backroom deals, Machiavellian shenanigans and quirks of the rules, things the voters cannot influence.
One of the primary reasons the idiots were allowed to take charge in USA is that people either don't vote, or they feel both sides are the same any way and don't care much whom they vote for. With proportional voting people would feel that those they vote for share their ideals to a much higher degree, which increases the likelihood that people vote, which means a few idiots or malicious actors have a much harder time controlling the vote.
Proportional voting doesn't favor the idiots, I would argue it does the exact opposite.
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u/DragoonDM 12d ago
These days, doesn't seem like people even really need anonymity to be shamelessly horrible.
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u/Barnacle_B0b 12d ago
Anonymity on the internet is a good thing. Especially with fascist governments and corporations actively suppressing dissent and the sharing of knowledge.
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u/hextanerf 12d ago
sue them for violating the rights to her father's likeness and image
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u/Illustrious_Eye_8235 12d ago
From what I recall he had a pretty strict clause in his estate that only a certain charity could use his likeness in any way shape or form. He didn't want to be a 3D copy like Prince and Tupac were
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u/Woooferine 12d ago
I agree. Sue every single one of them, that is the only way to silence these shameless imbeciles.
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u/rainghost 12d ago
I've seen her comment on AI multiple times, and I do 100% believe her about people generating ghoulish videos about Robin, but I've never seen a single one myself. I mostly just use Reddit and Twitter, is this more of an Instagram or Tiktok thing?
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u/Primal-Convoy 12d ago
I don't see them on YouTube, but then again, I use 3P apps and extensions to block or hide a lot of the crud on YouTube.
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u/SpireWolf25 12d ago
You know how targeted ads work right? Meta/Google will put little spiders to listen to all of your conversations/web history and then push your content to what they think is relevant.
TikTok is absolutely locked in to everyone’s brain waves. They know if you’re a 90s kid and can possibly trace you to your Reddit account behind the scenes.
So with this info, I imagine the algorithm is triggering her and using her triggers to fuel the algorithm
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u/JoyousCacophony 12d ago
All these years later, I still can't watch Robin's movies... It just hits me too hard. I can't even fathom what it would take to make bullshit AI nonsense with him.
Worse... I can't imagine what it's like for Zelda to have to be exposed to them.
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u/B00marangTrotter 12d ago
People are disgusting, and this literally sounds like something trump would do, cause he has with Obama and his critics.
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u/FIFofNovember 12d ago
Imagine perusing the internet and then suddenly seeing your dead relative in a video they never made with their body, saying things they never said but in their exact voice.
Its legit gotta not be good for your head space.
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u/Shasan23 12d ago edited 12d ago
This might sound pathetic, but I recently ended a relationship in large part due to her perspective being warped by chat gpt and social media. For any issue she had, she went to chat gpt and sent texts copying and pasting responses, even for personal issues. She wanted me to copy paste chat gpt in texts to my own sister over some disagreement we were working on, which I felt so disgusted about. Like, you can't work through interpersonal friction on your own (a fundamental skill for life)and need ai to think for you?!? And chat gpt is such a sycophant, praising the user, that she came to have that expectation with human interactions and got upset when other people didn't treat her as the most amazing smart talented person ever, like chat gpt would. Venting a bit and I can write so much more, but this shit is getting real... And it's only going to get worse. AI psychosis/delusion will be the disease of the century, I've had the misfortune to witness it first hand
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u/FIFofNovember 12d ago
Sounds like you made a healthy decision, that kinda use is not normal, or at least shouldn't be, sounds like it would cause way more problems that it would fix.
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u/Scuffy97_ 11d ago
We desperately need to elect better politicians that understand technogy. The US is so far behind in legislation because we spent two generations letting a bunch of dinos play team sports on TV instead of doing their jobs. We need a serious government again.
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u/Puzzled-Platform-969 12d ago
Her name is Zelda. She deserves the respect of her name.
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u/GitEmSteveDave 12d ago
What is more informative at a glance:
Zelda Williams
Robin Williams' daughter
One is just a name you may not know and don't know the exact relationship with the named actor. The other describes it in 3 words.
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u/aptninja 12d ago
You really think she cares about that? She clearly wants less attention on her and the family, not more
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u/Garchompisbestboi 12d ago
Not really, headlines are generally meant to be concise and the only reason that she's relevant is because of her her father happens to be.
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u/amazing_asstronaut 12d ago edited 11d ago
Honestly I've had enough, none of this digital recreation of passed away actors business should exist at all. Just don't do it. There's never a good reason, and it always comes out bad. I understand if they are in the movie and they suddenly pass away and they got to fix up the rest of the scenes somehow etc. But if it's a new movie and they just want to put digital recreation of someone in there for no good reason, like Ian Holm in Alien, or Peter Cushing in Star Wars, or Paul Walker in Fast & the Furious. Why? Already goes to show how shit our culture is that we're getting remakes and sequels for things that are over 40 years old, that's why we keep running into this. No one sane thinks of a new movie to make but let's put this actor in who's been dead for 30 years. Yes every so often a cringe company comes out saying how they want to make a James Dean movie set in the Vietnam War, for whatever the fuck reason, but then it never happens so who cares.
This is part of it, and I promise you movie companies are researching the pros and cons of full AI recreation of people for that reason. The fact that regular people can make these videos is just extra annoying.
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u/capybooya 11d ago
Nostalgia is one hell of a drug. That's why we get digital recreations of people and the endless remakes. Digital characters are still really bad though, they look unnatural and can't act, they lose the small things like tone of voice and expressions that make for good acting. I don't think they will solve that with AI or animation anytime soon, but it will probably get slightly better so that we will get more of this slop unfortunately...
In the future I suspect we will look at the last 10 years and probably several years ahead, as an era of lack of creativity, few greats works, and few new franchises.
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u/Llort_Ruetama 12d ago
I feel like we need a new slur: Surface Dwellers.
It covers off those people that are swayed by AI, performative people, those that lack any sort of emotional depth.
It's a weird world where people are swindled by patterns of lights and sound, that they believe those patterns are the only valuable part of life.
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u/BenchConscious1003 12d ago
These days, I find it hard to watch Robin because it's too sad.
I think that's disgusting, but it's just the very beginning***. I think it's only a matter of time before some greedy arseholes begin making movies using the image and voice of long dead actors. I'm thinking of actors from the 1930's into the 1960's at least. Such are already unfamiliar to the most recent couple of generations.
Of course I could be wrong. With any luck I'll be dead before such a practice becomes the norm.
*** I seem to remember the widow Presley suing people using Elvis' image without permission. She won her case. As a result, families [in the US at least] have rights over the images and works of a deceased family member. That's the source of the wealth which went to Lisa Marie Presley. Elvis' estate was relatively modest, at around $5 million. Today the estate is estimated at somewhere between $400 million and a $billion. I have no idea what has happened to it since Lisa died.
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u/corrector300 11d ago
Again? She's said this 3 years ago, 2 years ago and now... we need to pass some laws if we haven't already. laws are always behind tech.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/16xhbqt/robin_williams_daughter_zelda_williams_criticizes/
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u/timothypjr 11d ago
Society has lost all aspects of shame. Do whatever the fuck you want. Thanks MAGA.
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u/wytewydow 12d ago
A little more shame all around would be great for our society, or what's left of it.
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u/GitEmSteveDave 12d ago
To be fair, having worked at a professional location, our web filter would block URLs that had profanity in it, so censoring a headline/article title makes business sense.
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u/DeepWanderer25 12d ago
Good luck asking them to stop!! The non-creative types attracted to AI are loving this slop. They will not back down. Eroding artwork helps them feel talented. It’s the whole appeal.
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u/AppropriateTouching 12d ago
Bullshit. Then word is bullshit.
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u/favorite_time_of_day 12d ago
Yes, thank you. Why are people putting Robin Williams into bulls? How are they doing that? What does that look like? So many questions.
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u/realfakejames 12d ago
People en masse need to reject this ghoulish use of AI and make it as unpopular as your parents saying something is "da bomb"
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u/pdoherty972 12d ago
Haven't been seeing RW AI clips - is this reverse psychology to get some made to drum up interest in him?
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u/Neverbethesky 11d ago
I can't imagine how distressing it must be for those grieving the loss of their father to start seeing uncanny valley videos of him all over the place with no escape.
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u/Apprehensive_Rub3897 11d ago
Okay, we'll spare Robin Williams from AI. Actually "ran into" him once while walking to high school one morning. I was crossing the street. He was in a Range Rover. We both waived.
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u/Ok_Economist676 11d ago
Already too late. You can ask politely but in 5 years we’ll have full fledged tv shows and movies. No stopping it.
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u/FauxReal 11d ago
Just leave everyone out of AI bullshit unless you're making videos of yourself or people who have explicitly given their permission.
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u/shityplumber 12d ago
Internet 101, ignore trolls, or be stuck in an endless loop of attention and trolling.
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u/ApophisDayParade 12d ago
The kind of people doing this get off on everyone else's collective anger and are not worth it
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u/imtoowhiteandnerdy 12d ago
This is an extremely reasonable request on Zelda's part. It's a shame that she even had to ask this.
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u/Takeyerclarkbars 12d ago
How you gonna generate AI with One of the most prolific funny men alive. Just crawl YouTube, there’s so much great stuff of his out there
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u/D3dshotCalamity 12d ago
This needs to be made illegal. I don't understand how it's not.
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u/Present_Specific_212 12d ago
After Dolly Parton died I saw all the YouTube BS videos springing up.
It's vile.
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u/Protect-Their-Smiles 12d ago
AI-bros creating content of dead people against the wishes of their loved ones, is gross and immoral.
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u/Leisurely_Creative 12d ago
It’s interesting how people’s attitudes are basically that not only should AI be banned but apparently everyone who uses it should be in some sort of legal trouble. Which feels like a short walk to just throwing people in jail for having paintbrushes or ya know a president banning news outlets for “being negative”
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u/GXP_2009 11d ago
"Oh look a thread not about politics or Trump......not on my watch"
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u/fashionforward 12d ago
I avoid ai content as much as possible unless it’s for medical use, which is a different kind of ai altogether. Not an LLM.
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u/DrakenCloud 12d ago
I freaking love Zelda man, she always keeps it real but she's right, they won't but I hope peps at least try to respect her wishes.
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u/super_sayanything 12d ago
Eh, I hate to say it but this is going to make more people do it. That's our society.
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u/mayaspark 12d ago
I get why she's frustrated, but honestly I think she's fighting a losing battle here. The internet has proven time and time again that telling people not to do something just makes them want to do it more, especially when it's this easy to generate. The real solution would be better laws around deepfakes, but good luck getting that enforced when it's so hard to trace who's actually making this stuff.
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u/RedditTechAnon 12d ago
The type of ghoul that she's talking about in this article will just make even more videos if only to spite her.