Tom Hanks Speaks Out On Using AI to Keep Acting After Death
As more and more extreme uses for artificial intelligence grow more commonplace in our everyday lives, Tom Hanks is looking to the future of AI in Hollywood—especially as it pertains to allowing late or retired actors to continue appearing on screen.
We've already gotten a taste of what it looks like to place an actor in a shoot where he is not actually present thanks to Bruce Willis' deepfake European advertising campaign, but what does the technology mean for film?
Well, according to Hanks, nothing hugely new. The Sully star points out that AI—and what it means for intellectual property rights—has "always been lingering" in the media industry in a new interview on The Adam Buxton Podcast.
He points to The Polar Express, which he says was "the first time...a movie...had a huge amount of our own data locked in a computer—literally what we looked like..."
He went on to reveal that they foresaw this debate coming at the time. "We saw that there was going to be this ability to take 0s and 1s inside a computer and turn it into a face and a character. Now, that is only grown a billion-fold since then, and we see it everywhere. And I can tell you that there is discussions going on in all of the guilds, all of the agencies, and all of legal firms in order to come up with the legal ramifications of my face and my voice—and everybody else's—being our intellectual property."
At this point, it's more of an artistic challenge—and a legal one. He said he could pitch a film series starring him at 32 years old right now, as could anyone else: "Anybody can now recreate themselves at any age they are by way of AI or deepfake technology." Even if he were to be hit by a bus tomorrow, his performances could—and may someday—continue with "some degree of lifelike quality."
The question won't be whether or not people can tell that it's not really Hanks on screen, but if viewers will even care.
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