(OPINION) Tom Hanks says Artificial Intelligence is now so advanced he could be starring in new films when he is dead. The double Oscar winner said Hollywood stars and their lawyers are scrambling to work out how to deal with the rise of technology which could see actors digitally recreated until kingdom come’.
According to the Daily Star, Hanks, 66, said he predicted the rise of AI in the film industry 20 years ago. When he was making 2004 computer-animated movie The Polar Express he realized there was a potential to digitally recreate actors on the big screen.
But he said he could never have predicted how much of an impact it could have. Hanks said actors and their representatives are trying to figure out the legal ramifications of digital recreation.
Under current laws, he could star in films from beyond the grave, as he told the Adam Buxton podcast: “This has always been lingering. “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 which we made back around the year 2000.
“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.
“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.
“What is a bonafide 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 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.
“Outside of the understanding that it’s being done by AI or 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.
