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.

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

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.

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.

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.