In recent years, AI have impacted all the fields of life, and generating AI actors or AI clones of actors is one of them. There has been considerable discourse surrounding the exploitation of celebrities’ digital likenesses without obtaining their consent, whether it be during their lifetime or after their death. As striking actors fought for better protections around studios’ potential use of AI clones, Zelda Williams, the Lisa Frankenstein director and daughter of Robin Williams, criticized the “disturbing trend of people trying to recreate the voices and faces of the deceased” last year. Still, businesses continue to engage in it, disregarding the glaring ethical concerns.
Marilyn Monroe AI Clone:
The most recent being Soul Machines! A digital chatbot, “Digital Marilyn,” was created to mimic Marilyn Monroe’s appearance and voice.At SXSW this year, the Marilyn bot was unveiled by the company and Authentic Brands Group. The company focuses on what it calls Biological AI-powered Digital People.
Monroe is just one of many famous people whose likenesses are owned by ABG. Other famous people whose likenesses are owned by ABG include Elvis Presley and Shaq. Digital Marilyn, driven by GPT 3.5, can react with “emotions and nuanced expressions,” according to Soul Machines’ press release. It takes her about 20 minutes to carry on a conversation.
Soul Machines stated on their blog that Digital Marilyn is more than just a convincing impersonation; it is a fully autonomous digital person who can have conversations that seem real, lively, and responsive. It’s as if Marilyn’s own contagious energy has been transported to the AI actor, providing a one-of-a-kind, intimate experience for both longtime admirers and curious outsiders.
Posting an Instagram photo in honor of International Women’s Day was the perfect way for Soul Machines to unveil their Marilyn Monroe AI to the world. It’s the same as using a famous woman’s image without her permission.
In addition to a forthcoming Carmelo Anthony bot, Soul Machines promotes its digital celebrities as a limitless way for celebrities to interact one-on-one with their fans and provide a constant connection. Mark Tuan, Francis Ngannou, and Jack Nicklaus are three additional AI celebrities that the company is currently offering chats with. Interestingly, all three of these men are alive and can, therefore, provide their opinions on their inclusion.
James Dean AI Clone:
But this is not the only example. Artificial intelligence has made it possible to create AI clones of famous people like, but this practice begs the question of what rights we have after death.
Having a career that lasts a lifetime is a goal of many actors. Getting ahead in the entertainment industry isn’t easy, and not many people make it. But for those who do, there is a certain immortality that comes with making it big in Hollywood.
James Dean, an American film hero, was killed in a vehicle crash in 1955 after appearing in just three highly successful films. Still, a new film titled Back to Eden, starring Dean, is set to release in the near future, nearly seven decades after his death.
The actor will be replaced with a digital clone that can walk, talk, and interact with other characters in the film. This clone was built utilizing artificial intelligence technology that is comparable to deepfakes.
When it comes to computer-generated imagery (CGI), this technology is state-of-the-art. However, it is also the source of some of the concerns expressed by screenwriters and actors who went on a strike in Hollywood following the first such event in 43 years. Artificial intelligence algorithms, they worry, would stifle human imagination in favor of economic maximization. Some people are worried that AI would force them to “say and do things I have no choice about,” and actress Susan Sarandon is one of them.
It’s not the first time that actors have appeared to come back to life on screen after passing away, thanks to a combination of cutting-edge digital technology and a dash of Hollywood magic; Dean is just the latest example. A number of famous actors and actresses have returned to their legendary roles after their deaths, including Carrie Fisher, Harold Ramis, and Paul Walker. Another resurrected celebrity, Brazilian singer Elis Regina, was featured in an automotive commercial last year, duetting alongside her daughter Maria Rita. Travis Cloyd, CEO of immersive media agency WorldwideXR (WXR), compared their onscreen appearances to deepfakes and what he calls “passive flat screen, 2D” depictions.
Two films starring Dean’s AI clone have been in the works. The 2019 film Finding Jack was supposed to feature his CGI resurrection; however, the production was subsequently shelved. Back to Eden, a science fiction picture where “an out of this world visit to find the truth leads to a journey across America with the legend James Dean,” is where Dean will actually star, according to Cloyd’s confirmation to BBC.
Additionally, the AI cloning of Dean signifies a major change in the realm of possibility. His artificial intelligence character will be able to interact with viewers through gaming, augmented reality, and virtual reality, in addition to playing a flat-screen part in Back to Eden and a number of sequels. This technology is many years ahead of passive digital reconstruction and deepfake, which merely superimpose an image of a person’s face onto another’s body. As a result, it opens the door to the previously inconceivable possibility of performers’ (or anybody else’s) careers continuing long after their deaths have passed, creating a sort of immortality.
However, it brings up some unsettling inquiries as well. When a person dies, who gets to keep their likeness, voice, and persona? Could an actor who became famous for their roles in dark dramas be forced into appearing in a silly comedy or even pornographic material after they pass away? What power do they have over their career trajectory? What if they may be utilized in advertisements for the purpose of careless brand promotion? If that is the case, then why not just allow them to die in peace?
Marc Winslow, who was raised on an Illinois farmhouse with Dean, whom he affectionately nicknames Jimmy, and who is Dean’s cousin, believes that his cousin’s enduring cinematic charisma makes him a desirable candidate for a prominent role in contemporary cinema. “If there are two or three other people in a scene, your eye goes right to him,” according to him. “You know, I don’t think anyone will ever be able to replace them, but It’s possible that they can do that on screen and make it very lifelike.”
AI Actors:
With WRX and its sibling firm CMG Worldwide, Dean is only one of hundreds whose images are represented; others include Rosa Parks, Bettie Page, Malcolm X, and Amelia Earhart.
Nearly seventy-eight years ago, Dean passed away, leaving behind a wealth of “source material” (what WRX’s Cloyd terms “visual and auditory representations of him”). According to Cloyd, the photorealistic portrayal of a Dean is the result of a team of digital specialists employing cutting-edge technology that scans an enormous number of photos, adjusts their resolution, and processes them. When combined with video, audio, and artificial intelligence, these elements can be used to create a digital clone that mimics Dean’s appearance, speech, movement, and responses to commands.
Unlike modern celebrities, Dean did not create any kind of digital footprint; he did not post selfies, send emails, use search engines, buy groceries online, or even get prescriptions filled online. Insights gained from these pursuits could one day help create a digital clone that is more than just an identical twin, one that is sophisticated enough to hold a convincing conversation with a real person.
In fact, there are currently businesses that facilitate the uploading of digital data from the deceased in order to construct so-called “deadbots” that supposedly communicate with the living after death. The more sources the deadbot uses, the more accurate and smart it becomes. This means that the person in charge of a famous person’s estate could potentially let a convincingly realistic clone of the late star keep working in the movie business and interacting with people on its own forever.
In an interview with the Adam Buxton Podcast, Tom Hanks made a bold prediction about his working life. He said, “I could be hit by a bus tomorrow, and that’s it, but my performances can go on and on and on.”
Dead People Are Taking Roles:
Actors like Hanks are understandably worried about the potential ethical, legal, and practical problems that the next stage of AI human resurrection may bring to the attention of both famous people and regular people. Particularly outspoken and collaborative across acting guilds, voice actors have been fighting for actors’ rights and careers.
Tim Friedlander, president and founder of the National Association of Voice Actors (Nava) in the United States, explains, “When a voice actor provides the voice of Mickey Mouse, Porky Pig, or Snow White, a replacement is hired to perform that role.” “But what if you could use Mel Blanc [the voice actor who breathed life into many of the Loony Tunes cartoon characters] forever?”
Friedlander and his fellow voice actors are worried that this is going to happen soon and that the voiceover industry will be controlled by AI Actors revived actors, leaving no room for actual actors. “No one else can get a job now that they’ve lost it to a dead voice actor—he’s the original, after all.”
Although Cloyd admits that dead actors may have less opportunities to act, she takes a “glass-half-full” view of the situation. “At the end of the day, it creates lots of jobs,” he remarks, alluding to the additional technical and film industry jobs that could be created by the technology. “So even though it could be jeopardising one person’s role or job, at the same time, it’s creating hundreds of jobs in regards to what it takes to do this at a high level.”
The Rights Of The Dead:
The rights of the dead, and are there any rights for the deceased? The regulations are vague, and in certain parts of the globe, they don’t exist at all.
Legal expert Erik Kahn states that the situation varies from state to state in the United States. Kahn co-authored an article regarding the postmortem publicity rights of celebrities for the American Bar Association’s magazine Landslide. When it comes to protecting the wishes of deceased celebrities, some states simply do not have explicit publicity rights.
Upon the demise of a famous person, their “rights to publicity” typically go to their relatives or whoever was specifically bequeathed them in a will. As “it’s not like a contract because it’s a one-way document,” even a will, which typically specifies who would receive financial compensation for the commercial use of a deceased celebrity’s name and likeness, has no legal sway, according to Kahn. Their live executor becomes the ultimate arbiter of how their likeness is used. Using a will, some famous people like Robin Williams were able to restrict who could use their image after they died, but that restriction only lasted for 25 years.
On the other hand, according to Kahn, famous people do need extra protection against specific forms of defamation. For instance, if Marilyn Monroe’s estate did not consent to the use of her likeness and image in a pornographic film, the actress could not be used posthumously. The grounds upon which Monroe’s estate may seek redress include copyright infringement, defamation by remarks that misrepresent her character, and the possibility that such portrayal could “interfere with prospective business advantage” (depending on the state in question). When it comes to trademark infringement and false or deceptive advertising involving celebrities who have passed away, the federal Lanham Act provides an extra layer of protection.
Protected from commercial exploitation or unauthorized use of their personal features are deceased individuals with the most complete definition of “right of publicity” in New York. However, the right of publicity actually safeguards the deceased’s estate, not the deceased individual themselves, even in jurisdictions with apparently stringent rules.
“If your family wants to sell you out and you’re dead, there’s not a whole lot you can do,” says Pou-I “Bonnie” Lee, a lawyer based in New York who co-authored the Landslide legal piece with Kahn. This opens the door for the possibility of a pornographic film featuring the late Marilyn Monroe, for instance. On a legal basis, assuming her will authorize such usage of her likeness and pictures. “If the estate is saying they want this, it’s unfortunate, but I think it could happen,” Lee adds.
Public Safety:
Regular people may have much less say over what happens to their digital legacy and likeness after death, in contrast to the nebulous rights enjoyed by deceased superstars in certain jurisdictions regarding the commercial exploitation of their image and likeness. Legal safeguards against the digital resurrection of the dead for private use are lacking in the United States. Anyone can make a deadbot or an AI actor that interacts with your public digital legacy by uploading it into AI software after your death. Although states like New York have more stringent postmortem safeguards, Lee is skeptical of the methods used to enforce these laws and believes that individuals’ identities can still be used for evil reasons. “Ultimately, someone needs to enforce it,” according to her.
Legislation has to be passed soon to safeguard the rights and legacies of the deceased, according to Cloyd, Friedlander, and Kahn, for famous people and ordinary people. Rapid technological advancement has already sparked ethical discussions about AI portrayals of the deceased. Cloyd says he was “a little worried” regarding digitally reviving the deceased at first, but now he’s certain that WXR is handling the situation with care and initiative.
Friedlander is also fighting for voice actors’ rights to avoid job loss and is hopeful that Nava’s work will assist actor groups globally in organizing and fighting for equal chances.
Winslow, on the other hand, confesses to having conflicting emotions upon witnessing his digitally revived cousin. “I don’t know what to think about it,” he points out. “I want him to be respected. He was really involved in acting, took it very seriously. I would want the same image to be projected.”
The use of AI to recreate deceased actors generates ethical concerns. A number of concerns have been raised regarding this matter. These include the possibility of historical manipulation, inauthentic performances that could tarnish the actor’s reputation, audiences being disturbed by uncanny valley representations, and the lack of opportunities for living actors.
