Robin Williams' daughter Zelda says AI recreations of her dad are 'personally disturbing'

It would be a shame to lose valuable things like there I ruined it, which seem to be a perfectly fair use of copyrighted works. Copyright is already too strong.

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IMO people doing it on their own for fun/expression is different than corporations doing it for profit, and there's no real way to stop that. I think if famous AI constructs become part of big media productions, it will come with a constructed moral justification for it. The system will basically internalize and commodify the repulsion to itself exploiting the likeness of dead (or alive) actors. This could be media that blurs the line and proports to ask "deep questions" about exploiting people, while exploiting people as a sort of intentional irony. Or it will be more like a moral appeal to sentimentality, "in honor of their legacy we are exploiting their image, some proceeds will support causes they cared about, we are doing this to spread awareness, the issue they are representing are too important, they would have loved this project, we've worked closely with their estate." Eventually there's going to be a film like this, complete with teary-eyed behind-the-scenes interviews about how emotional it was to reproduce the likeness of the actor and what an honor it was. As soon as the moral justification can be made and the actor's image can be constructed just well enough. People will go see it so they can comment on what they thought about it and take part in the cultural moment.

yeah i don't think it should be legislated against, especially for private use [people will always work around it anyway], but using it for profit is really, viscerally wrong

We need something like the fair use doctrine coupled with identify rights.

If you want to use X's voice and likeness in something, you have to purchase that privilege from X or X's estate, and they can tell you to pay them massive fees or to fuck off.

Fair use would be exclusively for comedy, but still face regulation. There's plenty of hilarious TikToks that use AI to make characters say stupid shit, but we can find a way to protect voice actors and creators without stifling creativity. Fair use would still require the person's permission, you just wouldn't need to pay to use it for such a minor thing -- a meme of Mickey Mouse saying fuck for example.

At the end of the day though, people need to hold the exclusive and ultimate right to how their likeness and voice are used, and they need to be able to shut down anything they deem unacceptable. Too many people are concerned with what is capable than with acting like an asshole. It's just common kindness to ask someone if you can use their voice for something, and respecting their wishes if they don't want it.

I don't know if this is a hot take or not, but I'll stand by it either way -- using AI to emulate someone without their permission is a fundamental violation of their rights and privacy. If OpenAI or whoever wants to claim that makes their product unusable, tough fucking luck. Every technology has faced regulations to maintain our rights, and if a company can't survive without unbridled regulations, it deserves to die.

Considering the internet is already a hellscape of deepfake porn, let's not take the libertarian approach to this, 'kay?

Also, there are two major issues at hand that you are conflating.

People aren't doing AI recreations of Robin Williams because they love the way he said "zucchini". They are doing it because of the novelty of hearing Robin perform their material or making him say "Happy Birthday Fred" or "Jewish Space Lizards Control Kansas" or whatever. Much like with deepfake porn, the appeal is using someone against their will for your own pleasure.

The other aspect, and what the SAG and WGA strikes have been about (and which Robin famously preempted over twenty years ago), is training data. It is the idea of using past footage and performances to make a super actor (similar to what Square tried with FF The Spirits Within). So you might have Tom Cruise's gait coupled with Ryan Reynolds's chin and Hugh Jackman's nipples and so forth. And, that is still a huge mess.

In the context of close relatives being very disturbed by what is made with the person's image, I really don't think legally allowing absolutely everyone to do as they please with it will help.

At least that was just smoke screen trickery and not literal digital necromancy

You tend to consent to a photo or video

I’m not sure what you mean. There’s nothing more consensual about photography necessarily. Paparazzi are a thing, for example.

I think the real difference here is that we understand video and audio recordings, we even have some laws governing when you can record someone. So we are comfortable with those technologies. Above all, we’re used to them.

AI isn’t the exact same thing but I think the main source of discomfort is its newness and mysteriousness. We don’t have laws governing it. We don’t understand it very well. This makes it creepy.

Yeah, there's a significant difference between a recording and generating.

Ops point remains, this is exactly what everyone said about photos and then videos and then video with sound etc.

You’ve always been told you can’t see what’s on the internet, now that’s even more true.

There are ways we process and handle new tech, there’s a grace period to figure out issues and solutions.

Part of the problem is regressionist ideals holding everyone back from making real changes. Being able to generate nudies of your crush is the tip of the iceberg and demonstrates our ability to create teachable models that perform well and reliably to reconstruct images from noise. There lots of applications but ultimately making images is just art and it’s sorta hard to break out of that sphere easily.

Yeah. People should just accept that companies resurrect their loved ones for profit. No need to be such a buzzkill about it.

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• The ethics of generating images, sound, or other representations of real people is considered no different than active imagination when done for fun and in privacy.

That doesn't sound right at all. Copying and processing somebody's works for the sake of creating a replica is completely different than imagining it to yourself. Depending on how its done, even pretending that it's being done solely for yourself is incorrect. Many AI-based services take feedback from what their users do, even if they don't actively share it.

Just like looking at something, memorizing it and imitating it is allowed while taking a picture may not be, AI would not necessarily get the rights to engage with media as people do. It's not an independent actor with personal rights. It's not an extension of the user. It's a tool.

Then again I shouldn't be surprised that an AI used and trained by AI users, replies about its use as basically a natural right.

The bad joke is that she'd be calling them disturbing not because it's fucked up, but because she thinks her dad is ugly.