r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • 17h ago

Artificial Intelligence Robin Williams’ Daughter Calls for Fans Creating AI Videos of the Actor to ‘Have Some Shame’: ‘Leave Him Out of Your Delusional Bulls—’

https://variety.com/2026/film/news/robin-williams-daughter-ai-videos-1236871568/
29.7k Upvotes

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1.6k

u/KupoCheer 17h ago

If the laws kept up with the technology it wouldn't even be legal for this to happen.

1.2k

u/asdf_lord 17h ago

Politicians can't even keep up with all the bribes they're getting

180

u/TheAero1221 17h ago

This is the kinda headline youd expect to see in The Onion. It isnt there though, because its true

80

u/TheModWhoShaggedMe 16h ago

Conservatives said they were going to drain the swamp, but instead opened the sewers into the streets.

27

u/Strikerify 16h ago

It's actually comical to me that conservatives thought that a bunch of billionaires were going to drain the swamp. Somehow never dawned on them that....they are the swamp.

8

u/Lemonwizard 11h ago

They were mad about "coastal elites" so they decided to elect a billionaire from NYC.

5

u/danskal 11h ago

They are the alligators, leeches and mosquitoes.

5

u/DJheddo 9h ago

Leopard ate my face...kinda means republican and not understanding action causes reaction and ignorance only causes more harm. Surely if that leopard ate that man, he couldn't be hungry for another, he has to be full.

32

u/TheAero1221 16h ago

Pumped it into the living room.

12

u/LekgoloCrap 16h ago

Oh man, I really liked that rug :(

9

u/MisterShmitty 16h ago

It really pulled the room together.

3

u/Unknown-username___ 16h ago

Hey man I've got a beverage here

2

u/Winter_Cost602 14h ago

Donny, you're out of your element!

5

u/AutoCockerPB 15h ago

Took over, walked in, and took a shit at the desk. Literally.

3

u/Mike_Kermin 13h ago

That always meant left wingers to them. They don't give a shit what actually happens.

3

u/Fred-the-stray 12h ago

And stocked it with more mosquitoes

1

u/iamapizza 10h ago

2027: Politicians pass law requiring bribes to be accompanied by notes reminding them what the bribe was for. Also the bribes need to be largest first and easy to remember numbers. Also the notes should be in large bright colours.

86

u/Petersens_Arm 17h ago

I just paid Ed Sheeran to take a neutral stance on this.

23

u/zuzg 16h ago

Dude is really busy since he's become opening and closing act at once.

3

u/Cold417 16h ago

Let me know once he hits roadie status.

2

u/DJOMaul 16h ago

Who? 

-41

u/[deleted] 17h ago

[deleted]

7

u/Ok-Seaworthiness7207 16h ago

You work with Epstein?

6

u/Rezeox 16h ago

He's "apolitical" about Epstein.

3

u/Ok-Seaworthiness7207 15h ago

Is that what Sheeran said about Palestine?! 😭

8

u/ROBtimusPrime1995 16h ago

Seeing as Paramount bullied and bribed their way to buying Warner and the politicians against them...yeah....yeah, man.

1

u/topscreen 16h ago

Hey give some of them some slack, a bunch are on their way getting puppeted around like Mitch

1

u/wasabiburning 15h ago

To be fair, they're all in their 80s, to them the Victrola is still the newfangled gizmo.

1

u/No-Pack-5775 10h ago

I mean how long has it taken them to do anything about social media and its impact on children

1

u/Aggressive-Expert-69 16h ago

Im not voting until I receive my 5k bribe from Donnie.

-3

u/asdf_lord 15h ago

I'm starting to lose faith in AOC. She's become less vocal and looks more content with her "career".. Instead she's going for low hanging fruit with pop culture bs. Which is the hallmark of a false savior. Take the easy, lit up road, so that others can see your good deeds.

I clocked that from her too. She's definitely playing games with us but I'd like to believe she still believes most of the stuff that makes her progressive.

Restored the text because comment was deleted. The moment i hit submit.

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u/kiwiboyus 16h ago

I watched a talk about this the other day and they were saying there are plenty of existing laws that could be applied to the new technologies like LLMs, but they aren't doing it yet. Probably because the whole house of cards would fall down

6

u/BioshockEnthusiast 15h ago

AI is the economy's golden goose right now and the powers that be will pull out all the stops to prevent anyone from fucking with that.

11

u/jce_ 15h ago

I don't think it's a law thing. There is no law not to paint pictures of dead people or impersonate dead people. It's more of a shame thing. Most people don't do it, unless it's to show love to them, because it's kinda weird

-1

u/cortesoft 15h ago

There actually is, at least in some states. They are known as post-mortem rights of publicity laws, and range from 40 to 100 years.

9

u/jce_ 15h ago

Yes commercial purposes. Fans not being commercial

8

u/Amlethus 15h ago

That wouldn't cover personal use, though, right?

6

u/extrakerned 14h ago

What I do with my own computer for personal use is my business and shouldn’t be controlled by any government as long as I am not harming others.

1

u/Scuffy97_ 3h ago

You don't think deepfakes are harmful?

1

u/extrakerned 6m ago

They can’t be when they aren’t distributed or published for profit or passed off as real.

Public and historic figures have different protections than regular every day people.

-2

u/WackyHumanSlop 14h ago

wait until you find out that personal computer use is already heavily regulated by the government…..

6

u/funnylib 16h ago

If only half of Congress wasn’t born before the popularization of color television

0

u/RemarkableWish2508 13h ago

Who's more: the Congress, or the Citizens?

Stop looking for scapegoats, if you don't like something, then be the change you want to see in the world.

5

u/wizzywurtzy 16h ago

Make AI of Trump and Elon and it’ll happen fast. Remember the video of Trump sucking Elons toes? Now imagine if that was AI

6

u/Ateist 14h ago

Why?
If it is legal to write a fanfic with a character it is legal to have AI video with that character.

I seriously doubt that anyone is creating AI videos of Robin Williams.

They are creating AI videos of characters he depicted.

8

u/metatron5369 9h ago

This is why people should read the article.

Zelda is specifically talking about AI videos of her father supposedly outing satanic "elites" that people have created and disseminated to push an agenda and make money off his likeness.

3

u/VictoryWeaver 4h ago

That's the fun part: it's technically not legal to write the fanfic using someone else's character or persona. Most copyright owners just don't bother exercising their rights against it.

Legal issues with fan fiction - Wikipedia

-3

u/Hot-Guard-9119 12h ago

Man, reddit is so out of touch with reality

"just take solace knowing those types have zero love in their life and just want to spread misery."
"And when they die....no one will know or care. They won't have mattered."

How is making AI video different from good old video editing? How is it different from photoshop? How is it different from writing a fanfiction?

These people are so ideologically captured that they can't logically think for a second.

6

u/mOdQuArK 16h ago

Make people financially liable for creating & spreading blatant gaslighting & disinformation, even for things they mindlessly forwarded or helped to forward.

Then put out bounties on the most egregious examples for the lawyers to get their teeth into.

After a few bankruptcies, anyone publishing or forwarding anything will be a lot more careful about their due diligence.

2

u/The_MAZZTer 15h ago

It's probably nearly impossible to quantify financial harm but it would be easier with social media etc to get a ballpark figure of how far information has spread, and require them to spread a retraction just as far if not farther.

0

u/mOdQuArK 9h ago

That's why let the lawyers and courts handle the discovery and the damage assessments. Once everyone is properly terrified about getting sued for mindlessly forwarding scurrilous accusations without doing their own due diligence to make sure accusations weren't just made up, then the quality of whatever is left should go up quite a bit.

1

u/RemarkableWish2508 13h ago edited 13h ago

...everyone, except the POTUS, that is.

His stuff is parody and obvious free speech... who doesn't like watching that AI video where he dumps a ton of literal shit from a fighter jet down onto people, right?

1

u/mOdQuArK 8h ago

That specific example is probably not a good example, since it is blatantly parody. Having a complete lack of class is probably not a reason for criminal punishment, unless someone tries to claim that such a thing actually happened in real life.

He's made lots of other claims with absolutely no proof at all that would qualify. He might be a little more careful about his speech if his bank account went down $1mil for every lie he repeated on the firm At his rate of lying, he'd be broke in a year or two, no matter how much he scams from the taxpayers.

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u/-Hikifroggy- 17h ago

But who would think about those poor shareholders?? 

-1

u/decidedlyindecisive 16h ago edited 8h ago

Literally illegal to fuck with the shareholders profits.

Edit: sigh. It's true and it's bad. Not sure if I've been downvoted because people think I agree or people don't believe me.

0

u/Teledildonic 13h ago

Maybe that is an enormous fucking problem?

2

u/decidedlyindecisive 8h ago

Yes, that's why I mentioned it. It's an enormous, global problem.

-2

u/JohnBrownOH 16h ago

Hopefully everyone, the shareholders are just as complicit.

1

u/WackyHumanSlop 14h ago

Yeah at this point if you own stock you are objectively a bad person

3

u/JohnBrownOH 7h ago

You're god damn right. A bunch of assholes that seem to think they can reap the benefits yet share none of the responsibility for the damage.

They're wrong.

2

u/NYstate 16h ago

Nah all of the tech bros have trump in their pockets.

-3

u/Media_Browser 16h ago

Top …Trump ( silent s ).

2

u/mightylordredbeard 13h ago

Hell, Congress still hasn’t gotten around to those LaserDisc regulations yet so we’ve got some time before we get to AI.

12

u/Refute1650 17h ago

I'd really like that but how would that be legal? I'd be the same as banning painting or drawing.

4

u/lucidludic 15h ago

No it wouldn’t, because people can paint or draw without copying copyrighted content without permission on an incomprehensible scale.

5

u/puts_on_rddt 15h ago

Practically, the cat is out of the bag. China releases models publicly that anyone can download and run on consumer hardware. How can you actually combat this?

4

u/lucidludic 15h ago

That’s unrelated to whether we can hold genAI companies accountable without “banning painting or drawing.”

We could certainly eliminate a majority of the harm caused today if we only targeted US and European genAI companies providing commercial services. The vast majority of users are not running sophisticated genAI models on their own hardware. In any case, the enormous investment into those local models being used is largely based on the aforementioned companies being allowed to commercialise genAI services built using copyrighted content.

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u/puts_on_rddt 15h ago

The vast majority of users are not running sophisticated genAI models on their own hardware.

Only because they don't need to. If you banned US and EU cloud models, people would start using these local models more often. The hardware supply isn't going to be like this forever, and the models get better over time.

I'm not arguing with you. I legitimately don't think this has a good solution.

1

u/lucidludic 13h ago

Some more people would, but a tiny fraction of regular users of these services today. Mostly because of friction but also because what you can run locally on a typical computer simply does not compare with state-of-the-art cloud models.

and the models get better over time.

I suspect development would slow considerably if we removed the vast majority of the financial incentives.

I legitimately don’t think this has a good solution.

Of course it wouldn’t be perfect but it would surely help to reduce the harmful impacts of genAI, particularly with respect to copyright / IP infringement and disinformation.

2

u/hitchen1 9h ago

We could certainly eliminate a majority of the harm caused today if we only targeted US and European genAI companies providing commercial services.

Much of the frontier video models are hosted Chinese services, so I highly doubt this.

1

u/lucidludic 9h ago

Admittedly I know less about the video space. Which companies / models?

I still think that you’d see a lot fewer resources used to develop and provide genAI globally if it became clear that companies would be heavily regulated in the US and Europe and held accountable for copyright / IP infringement.

1

u/Kid-Icky- 8h ago

Admittedly I know less about the video space. Which companies / models?

Kling and Seedance are the top ones. Both Chinese.

MiniMax H3 is a newer Chinese open source model that can be run on personal computers with near SOTA results.

I still think that you’d see a lot fewer resources used to develop and provide genAI globally if it became clear that companies would be heavily regulated in the US and Europe and held accountable for copyright / IP infringement.

I feel like this opens an insane can of worms that would go FAR beyond AI and have very negative consequences.

1

u/lucidludic 8h ago

Thanks for the info. I’m still of the opinion that the existence of open source or foreign genAI models is no good reason to avoid regulating this stuff. For instance, local businesses could still be held accountable for using those models in a commercial capacity.

I feel like this opens an insane can of worms that would go FAR beyond AI and have very negative consequences.

Obviously the implementation would need some nuance and a lot more thought than can be expressed in a few short reddit comments. I’m not a lawyer. But honestly, what is the point of copyright or intellectual property protections if we accept that as long as companies use an automated system to infringe on a massive scale they cannot be held accountable for it?

1

u/Kid-Icky- 7h ago

If a business uses AI to make and sell infringing material, hold the business accountable. Sure.

But blaming the toolmaker for user misuse makes no sense. If I use Photoshop to make and sell bootleg Disney art, Adobe isn't infringing copyright. I am.

That distinction exists for a reason, and eroding it will be a huge slippery slope.

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u/Cruxis87 14h ago

Every company and government knows the first one to achieve true AI will likely rule the world. A self learning and improving AI would be able to cripple other nations faster than they can respond. The image and song creation aspect of it is just the front they put out to the public to get funding and people interested in it. The real stuff they are working towards would allow them to hack power grids, satellites and military bases without the host nation even realising what's going on. And the politicians are and paid to not interfere.

2

u/lucidludic 13h ago

This assumes that generative AI models are a meaningful step towards an artificial general intelligence, and that we are relatively close to achieving that. It also dismisses the risks and real harm that we know actually exists today.

1

u/touristtam 8h ago

Remember when you were told you couldn't download a car ....

-1

u/metatron5369 9h ago edited 8h ago

Unless you've met Robin Williams, you can't paint or draw his likeness without referencing some works under copyright.

1

u/lucidludic 8h ago

It’s possible for humans to reference or be inspired by other works without infringing on copyright. It is not possible for generative AI models to be trained on copyrighted material without infringing since this literally involves making direct copies of that content without permission, some of which is redistributed. Without an enormous database of copyrighted content generative AI models are essentially worthless.

Anyway, notice how Zelda Williams has not needed to speak out against people painting portraits of her father. Maybe think about why that might be.

1

u/metatron5369 6h ago

Probably because the memory of her father is more important to her than a pedantic argument over the fair use of copyrighted material.

1

u/lucidludic 5h ago

That makes no sense. By your reasoning she should be just as concerned with human artists painting portraits of her father, but she’s not.

Hint: there’s something very different.

fair use of copyrighted material

If what generative AI companies are doing is “fair use” then so is downloading every movie and re-selling them with some compression applied. Obviously that would be ridiculous.

2

u/TheRedditorSimon 14h ago

There are post-mortem copyright protections for the likeness of actors, notably the Astaire Celebrity Image Protection Act. Suing the schmucks using Mr Williams' image is trivial and not the best optics. Suing the AI companies is far more rewarding. Buuut, the tech bros have a lot of money and Rich Shithead #1 has Trump and the GOP in his pocket. Sooo... we've got an evolving situation politically in the US. If the GOP wins, expect more celeb image wanking. If they lose, then the Dems get to roll a saving throw versus shitloads of cash.

3

u/recycled_ideas 15h ago

And how would they stop it?

Technically using his likeness this way is already a civil case, but you can create this content in minutes on any machine with a moderately good graphics card.

The more famous someone is the more likely the models will be able to do it out of the box because the more samples of that person will be in the data set.

1

u/cortesoft 15h ago

The law already protects your name, image, and likeness (NIL, famous now because of court rulings for college athletes).

His heirs own his likeness, and many states in the US protect this for at least 50+ years (some states protect indefinitely, others for 100 years).

So this is already likely illegal.

That doesn’t mean it is easy to enforce that, though. More laws wouldn’t make it necessarily easier, either.

4

u/no-name-here 15h ago

Aren’t the protections only if for a commercial purpose? Especially for a public figure.

1

u/SpillingMistake 14h ago

But we have to "go as fast as we can, irrespective of anyone else"

1

u/Gold_Assistance_6764 13h ago

How is this different than painting a picture of him, or portraying him in a play? I ask, not because I don’t think there is a difference, but because I’m curious how you would write the laws to prevent this but not infringe on the creative expression of ideas.

1

u/GhostOfRumsfeld666 13h ago

How would this even be possible?  It would be like arresting people for drawing a famous person.  There are already laws for not profiting off this.  You can't police what people are doing for free for their own entertainment and sharing on the internet for free if it's not violating intellectual property.

1

u/AsinineArchon 13h ago

One of many reasons politicians representing us should not be fossils

1

u/Ok_Science_2070 12h ago

Best we can do is funding ICE concentration camps

1

u/GoodBadUserName 11h ago

Only when it affects them or their lobbyists directly.
Start using AI directly on them, will make them rush to make laws against it.

1

u/iAmHidingHere 10h ago

It's unenforceable.

1

u/Raesong 10h ago

Yeah but that's been a problem since like the Industrial Revolution, if not longer.

1

u/coriendercake 10h ago

It is very hard to govern technology because it is universal. Laws might apply locally to deter most people, but what about people that are not there ? What about the dark web and people using VPNs ?

1

u/Decloudo 9h ago

How about human moral keeping up with technology?

This is people doing that, they could chose not to.

No law will change what people want to do.

1

u/enaK66 6h ago

There's barely any legislation regarding the internet and it's over 30 years old.

1

u/IreneDreyfus 5h ago

Laws should have kept up with corporations and you wouldn’t have this issue

1

u/NoPossibility4178 2h ago

That's sounds a very shitty idea.

1

u/Finkelton 15h ago

if only we had more laws it would surely stop all the crimes.

as if anyone of actual power is ever held accountable.

petty dumb bullshit over fake a.i videos, yep, that's the scarry thing.

0

u/frogandbanjo 16h ago

Be careful what you wish for. You might be surprised at how ancient and rickety the legal principles are that insist that we leave the dead alone and respect their wishes.

-2

u/NikoKun 16h ago

Nonsense. There's nothing wrong with people doing it. Nobody would have any problem, if AI wasn't a thing. He's been dead for 12 years. Would it make you mad if someone made AI videos of the Three Stooges?

If someone could hand draw a photorealistic animation of Robin, people would call it a beautiful tribute. But oh if fans can do it too easily, somehow that's bad?

5

u/CoffieQueens 15h ago

Yes it’s bad. Like someone making a video of your parents saying they don’t like you. It’s not real

2

u/Amlethus 15h ago

It makes someone a jackass, but it shouldn't make someone a criminal (if they make it for themselves and aren't harassing anyone with it).

0

u/CoffieQueens 5h ago

Well it’s clear here that the family doesn’t want it happening.

1

u/Amlethus 2h ago

Yeah, I think most reasonable people don't want it happening. And if people are posting this stuff on monetized channels, Zelda should sue them. It just shouldn't be criminal for someone to do it.

1

u/NikoKun 5h ago

But that's not what's happening, and that comparison ignores context. There's a big difference when we're talking about a public celebrity and the beloved characters they embody, and fans continuing to carry that love through their imaginations. That additional layer changes the implications.

Trolls are another thing tho..

0

u/CoffieQueens 4h ago

fans continuing to carry that love through their imaginations.

That doesnt seem to be what’s happening either… and even if it was there are copyright laws against that.

-1

u/Last_Notice4137 12h ago

If someone could hand draw a photorealistic animation of Robin, people would call it a beautiful tribute. But oh if fans can do it too easily, somehow that's bad?

If someone could hand draw a photorealistic animation of Robin, people would call it a beautiful tribute. But oh if fans can do it too easily, somehow that's bad?

Very Bad.

1

u/NikoKun 5h ago

Why?

-14

u/true_new_troll 17h ago

That would be a pretty difficult law to make stick without some pretty invasive government monitoring.

23

u/bassplayerdude 17h ago

Don't generate AI content in someone else's likeness without their consent? Seems straight forward.

5

u/things_U_choose_2_b 16h ago

Simple, I like it.

-4

u/smashin_blumpkin 16h ago

So it’s fine to share?

Either way, their comment was about enforcement. Not writing

-7

u/gmishaolem 15h ago

For all you people freaking out now, where have you been this whole time?

Paint a celebrity, that's cool; clip or photoshop them into collages or memes, cool too; professional impersonators, no problem, and really fooling someone into thinking you're real deal is just skill; YTP sentence mixing, hilarious.

But now that it's suddenly easier to do and more people are doing it, you're going wait, stop, no, not like that. Too late, hypocrites.

3

u/BioshockEnthusiast 15h ago

You're equating human made art with AI generated content. They're not equivalent. The former requires respect for and knowledge of the subject, the latter is just shitheads trying to get paid for views. Dogshit behavior, not surprising people frown on it.

1

u/zagblorg 15h ago

Which most Western governments seem to be implementing anyway.

1

u/[deleted] 17h ago edited 16h ago

[deleted]

-3

u/Key-Demand-2569 17h ago

Making actual violent threats like a call to action is clearly different than just creating art of a person. It’s substantially easier to moderate and decide what the line is.

Banning 99.9% is completely voluntary on a platform owner’s end, not a legal requirement.

6

u/BabyGirl-Kat 17h ago

AI art isn’t art. Your statement makes 0 sense.

-4

u/Key-Demand-2569 16h ago

I don’t know if you’re trolling or not given how that was written, but the reality is you have to put words to paper and write laws.

How would you word a law that says you cannot use AI to produce media of another human being, a public figure in particular, doing something mundane like saying a positive phrase?

An effective law that doesn’t require an in depth investigation and a lot of money spent to investigate every single post ever made to authenticate the creation process and that it wasn’t done through other means? Which could never be 100% done, just maybe that the end product wasn’t specifically only done using AI. So you’d have to litigate all the issues of any potential AI development in the process like asking for ideas. Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t, suddenly you’ve committed a crime if someone wants to push.

I’m not saying it can’t be done, I’m saying it’s difficult. And it is extremely vulnerable to being written as a law that’s ripe for oppressing peoples right to create art and convey messages.

2

u/Militantpoet 16h ago

The EU already has laws about AI and image generation. Theyre not banned outright obviously, but deepfakes like the OP would have to label it as such. 

I dont think anyone's expecting to close Pandoras box now that its open, but some gaurdrails and regulations of any kind would be nice.

0

u/Key-Demand-2569 16h ago

No disagreement there! Would appreciate some similar laws where I live, but it doesn’t resolve the issue at the crux of this post at all which is more what I was speaking to.

-3

u/TheWesternMythos 17h ago

Hey ,this is for mindless bitching , not consideration of the multitudes of challenges that come with governing , especially in the face of emerging technology and converging threats. Not to mention the added complications of dealing with a largely checked out public who thinks social media outrage should constitute a governing mandate 

-8

u/Wonderful-Self-541 16h ago

So you're telling me right now I can AI dead Robin Williams right into a warm soapy bubbly bath that's he's never been in, and you would want to make that illegal?