Tom Hanks Warns Fans of AI Deepfake Used in Dental Ad

“BEWARE!! There’s a video out there promoting some dental plan with an AI version of me. I have nothing to do with it,” said Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks in a stern warning to his 9.5 million Instagram followers on October 1. 

While Hanks has been a strong critic against the misuse of AI and misappropriation of actors’ likeness, he has endorsed digital alterations of himself over the years through TV and film. 

Hanks himself appeared in the 2004 film The Polar Express as a CGI version and was de-aged for the 2022’s A Man Called Otto. However, the unchecked use of deepfake technology without consent continues to remain unsettling with respect to the preservation and advancement of modern day intellectual property laws. 

In a recent podcast with British comedian Adam Buxton, Hanks voiced additional concerns about the future of AI in Hollywood cinema, noting the strong possibility of AI allowing a fake version of him to continue acting long after their time.  

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“I could be hit by a bus tomorrow, and that’s it, but performances can go on and on and on and on. And outside of the understanding that it’s been done with AI or deepfake, there’ll be nothing to tell you that it’s not me and me alone. And it’s going to have some degree of lifelike quality. That’s certainly an artistic challenge, but it’s also a legal one.”

But AI isn’t new to our world, and it has surely continued to thrive in the background of our computer hardware, software, and other innovations that we’ve only historically ignored in exchange for functionality. 

“We saw this coming. We saw that there was going to be this ability to take zeros and ones inside a computer and turn it into a face and a character. Now that has only grown a billionfold since then, and we see it everywhere,” Hanks emphasized. 

Last week, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) finally came to an agreement, ending the second largest writers’ strike in history at 146 days.

However, for Hollywood actors, the battle is far from over, as SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, remains on strike looking for solutions that speak to these concerns of AI being used within the film industry, leading to instances of abuse and misappropriation. 

Editor’s note: This article was written by an nft now staff member in collaboration with OpenAI’s GPT-4.