Zelda Williams, the daughter of Robin Williams, has asked people to stop sending her AI-generated videos of her father, the celebrated US actor and comic who died in 2014.
“Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad,” Zelda Williams posted on her Instagram stories.
“Stop believing I wanna see it or that I’ll understand, I don’t and I won’t. If you’re just trying to troll me, I’ve seen way worse. I’ll restrict and move on.
“But please, if you’ve got any decency, just stop doing this to him and to me, to everyone, even, full stop. It’s dumb, it’s a waste of time and energy, and believe me, it’s NOT what he’d want.”
This is not the first time Zelda Williams, a film director, has criticised AI versions of her father, who took his own life in 2014 at his Californian home at the age of 63.
Williams, who was famous for films such as Good Morning Vietnam, Dead Poets Society and Mrs Doubtfire, was understood to have been battling depression at the time of his death.
In 2023, in an Instagram post supporting a campaign against AI by US media union SAG-Aftra, she described attempts at recreating his voice as “personally disturbing”, while also pointing to the wider implications.
Her post reflects a trend on social media, where images of people who have died are animated, featuring captions like “bring your loved ones back to life”.
Williams continued: “To watch the legacies of real people be condensed down to ‘this vaguely looks and sounds like them so that’s enough’, just so other people can churn out horrible TikTok slop puppeteering them is maddening,” she continued.
Source: BBC
