Robin Williams’ daughter asks fans to stop sending AI videos of late father

Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda Williams has publicly asked fans to stop sending her AI-generated videos of her late father, calling the practice “gross” and “personally disturbing.” The filmmaker’s emotional Instagram story posts highlight growing concerns about AI’s use of deceased celebrities’ likenesses without consent, particularly as the technology becomes more accessible for creating deepfake content.

What they’re saying: Zelda Williams delivered a pointed message to those creating and sharing AI recreations of her father.

• “Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad,” she wrote. “Stop believing I wanna see it or that I’ll understand, I don’t and I won’t.”
• “You’re not making art, you’re making disgusting, over-processed hotdogs out of the lives of human beings, out of the history of art and music, and then shoving them down someone’s throat hoping they’ll give you a little thumbs up and like it. Gross.”

Why this matters: The controversy underscores broader ethical questions about AI’s use of deceased public figures’ voices and images without family consent.

• Robin Williams died in 2014, meaning any AI recreations are created without his permission or input.
• The incident reflects growing tensions between AI capabilities and respect for human dignity, particularly regarding those who cannot consent to their digital resurrection.

The bigger picture: Zelda Williams has been vocal about AI recreations of her father since 2023, when she called them “personally disturbing” during the SAG-AFTRA strike.

• “I’ve witnessed for YEARS how many people want to train these models to create/recreate actors who cannot consent, like Dad,” she wrote at the time.
• She argued that “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.”

Her critique of AI: Williams rejected the framing of AI as innovative technology, instead characterizing it as recycled content.

• “Stop calling it ‘the future,’ AI is just badly recycling and regurgitating the past to be re-consumed,” she wrote.
• She compared AI-generated content to “the Human Centipede of content,” suggesting it’s a degraded version of original human creativity.

Context: The plea comes as AI voice and video generation tools have become increasingly sophisticated and accessible to general users.

• TikTok and other social platforms have seen a surge in AI-generated content featuring deceased celebrities.
• The technology raises complex questions about digital rights, family consent, and the commercialization of deceased public figures’ likenesses.