Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks alerted fans to a fake dental plan ad that uses his image, noting that it was created by using artificial intelligence.
In an Instagram post, Hanks said the image had been used without his permission.
"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 a screenshot of the computer-generated image of himself taken from the video clip.
Hanks, 67, has previously voiced reservations about the use of AI in film and TV. Days before the start of the Hollywood writers' strike, during an appearance on British comedian Adam Buxton's podcast, Hanks said it was something that should have been seen coming.
"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," he said. "Now that has only grown a billionfold since then, and we see it everywhere.
"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.
"Right now if I wanted to, 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. Anybody can now recreate themselves at any age they are by way of AI or deepfake technology."
Hanks told Buxton that AI could result in an ongoing portrayal of him, perpetually keeping a fabricated version of himself in the acting world.
"I could be hit by a bus tomorrow, and that's it, but performances can go on and on and on and on," Hanks said. "And outside of the understanding that it's been done with AI or deepfake, 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. That's certainly an artistic challenge, but it's also a legal one."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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