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Tom Hanks has hinted that artificial intelligence might be used to carry on his profession after his passing.
The Cast Away and Forrest Gump actor claimed that the technology could be used to reproduce his likeness, guaranteeing his continuing participation in motion pictures “from now until kingdom come.”
But he acknowledged that the changes presented both aesthetic and legal difficulties.
He made his comments at the same time that Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys said that musicians may finish songs using AI.
In the most recent episode of The Adam Buxton podcast, Hanks, 66, was questioned about the legal implications of the new technology.
“This has always been lingering,” he said. “The first time we did a movie that had a huge amount of our own data locked in a computer – literally what we looked like – was a movie called The Polar Express.
“We saw this coming, we saw that there was going to be this ability to take zeros and ones from inside a computer and turn it into a face and a character. That has only grown a billion-fold since then and we see it everywhere.”
The first totally animated movie made using digital motion capture was The Polar Express, which was released in 2004.
Hanks said talks are being held in the film industry about how to protect actors from the effects of the technology.
“I can tell you that there is discussions going on in all of the guilds, all of the agencies, and all of the legal firms in order to come up with the legal ramifications of my face and my voice and everybody else’s being our intellectual property,” Hanks added.
“What is a bona fide possibility right now is, if I wanted to, I could get together and pitch a series of seven movies that would star me in them in which I would be 32 years old from now until kingdom come.
“Anybody can now recreate themselves at any age they are by way of AI or deep fake technology. I could be hit by a bus tomorrow and that’s it, but performances can go on and on and on and on.
“Outside the understanding of AI and deep fake, 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.”
Harrison Ford, 80, was “de-aged” for the opening scene of the newest Indiana Jones movie using a similar process.
In order to give the impression that Indiana Jones is in 1944, filmmakers searched through old video of the younger Ford and matched it to fresh footage.
Hanks stated that future technological advancements might result in an artificial intelligence-generated version of him showing up in films he might not typically choose.
He said: “Without a doubt people will be able to tell [that it’s AI], but the question is will they care? There are some people that won’t care, that won’t make that delineation.”
Conflicting opinions on the usage of AI by musicians are creating problems for the music business.
The Weeknd and Drake’s cloned voices were used in a song that was removed from streaming sites last month, but Grimes has urged artists to use her voice instead.
