Zelda Williams is not a fan of the technology recreating her late father, Robin Williams’ voice.
“I am not an impartial voice in SAG’s fight against AI,” Zelda said in a statement posted on Instagram Stories, according to Deadline. “I’ve witnessed for YEARS how many people want to train these models to create/recreate actors who cannot consent, like Dad. This isn’t theoretical, it is very very real.”
“I’ve already heard AI used to get his ‘voice’ to say whatever people want and while I find it personally disturbing, the ramifications go far beyond my own feelings. Living actors deserve a chance to create characters with their choices, to voice cartoons, to put their HUMAN effort and time into the pursuit of performance,” she continued.
Zelda went on to discuss the downsides of this use of AI saying at its best, the AI produced “a poor facsimile of greater people, but at their worst, a horrendous Frankensteinian monster, cobbled together from the worst bits of everything this industry is, instead of what it should stand for.”
Robin Williams died by suicide in 2014 at the age of 63. After his death, it was revealed that the actor had been battling degenerative condition Lewy body dementia.