Overview

• Posting on Instagram on Monday, Zelda Williams asked people to stop sending AI-generated clips of her late father, calling the practice “dumb,” “maddening,” and “not what he’d want.”
• She condemned the recreations as exploitative, describing them as “disgusting, over-processed hotdogs” and “horrible TikTok slop” that reduce real legacies to cheap imitations.
• In 2023, during SAG-AFTRA’s contract fight, Williams called such recreations “personally disturbing” and warned that models are trained to mimic performers who cannot consent.
• The Guardian reports that synthetic celebrity clips continue to spread across social media, with some recent Robin Williams videos appearing to use OpenAI’s Sora 2, and OpenAI says it offers copyright dispute forms but no blanket opt-out.
• Industry groups and actors have recently criticized synthetic performers like “Tilly Norwood,” with SAG-AFTRA insisting creativity should remain human-centered and opposing replacements of human performers.