For Zelda Williams, SAG-AFTRA’s battle against ‘horrendous’ AI is personal

Zelda Williams said she finds AI re-creations of her late father, Robin Williams, “personally disturbing.”

The “Dead of Summer” star took a stance against the use of artificial intelligence in a statement shared on her Instagram story over the weekend. Voicing support for the ongoing actors’ strike, Williams wrote she “witnessed for YEARS how many people want to train these models to create/recreate actors who cannot consent, like Dad.”

Robin Williams died at 63 in 2014. Nine years later, Zelda said creators are using AI to get her father’s “‘voice’ to say whatever people want.” She said AI takes opportunities from working actors who “deserve a chance to create characters with their choices, to voice cartoons, to put their HUMAN effort and time into the pursuit of performance.”

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The SAG-AFTRA strike began on July 14, with actors raising concerns on a number of issues, including residuals and the use of artificial intelligence in Hollywood projects. In recent months, a number of celebrities have spoken against AI.

In September, Tim Burton said that an AI filter inspired by his somber animation style “is like a robot taking your humanity, your soul.” On Sunday, Tom Hanks warned followers that his likeness was used for a video promoting a dental product.

“There’s a video out there promoting some dental plan with an AI version of me,” he wrote. “I have nothing to do with it.”

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Zelda Williams concluded her statement by noting that at their worst, AI re-creations are “a horrendous Frankensteinian monster cobbled together from the worst bits of everything this industry is, instead of what it should stand for.”

In July, Zelda celebrated what would have been her father’s 72nd birthday. In a tweet, she wrote that he “would’ve been out there fighting the good fight for artists today and always.”

Zelda’s October statement is not the first time she has spoken out about creative re-creations of her father. In 2021, she urged fans to stop sending her a viral video (that has since been deleted on YouTube) of an actor channeling her late father.

“The clip made me uncomfy so I was asking kindly for folks to stop sending it to me over and over,” she wrote. “Your love for Dad doesn’t mean I have to tolerate being bombarded in silence, and being projected upon can be pretty exhausting some days.”