You have to give Disney credit for refusing to use CGI to paste Chadwick Boseman into the Black Panther sequel. Wanna make an awesome rap song using your dead granny’s vocals? Need to hawk your line of energy drinks? Just use Gandhi. The possibilities are endless thanks to technology. That’s exactly why everyone is so scared.
Deep-fakes are the future; it isn’t just for adult entertainent and click-bait YouTube channels. The legality of manufacturing artificial videos of other real-life individuals is so bleeding edge, the laws haven’t fully caught up to the programmers. We’ve already seen the weaponization of fakes used in the Russo-Ukraine War, and that’s surely not the last time you can expect to see it either.
The most prominent uses haven’t been quite so dramatic, the tech popping up more often in entertainment, digital artists de-aging, removing crows feet, adding muscle to actors, and even reviving them from the dead. Our obsession with famous people doesn’t end when they do. Even in the afterlife, Princess Diana can’t escape the media’s spotlight.
Star Trek taught us that nobody is dead if we celebrate them. Star Wars taught us we ought to let them die, lest we want to see some unsettling CGI of dead actors. At this juncture, most CGI actors look like a video game cut-scene, but that will change. The entertainment industry is already scrambling to re-write the rule book for who does and doesn’t count as a performer.
All You Need is Chat GPT
The blazing advances in AI-generated media has reached a new level of sophistication. Not everyone knows how to feel about it, though. Paul McCartney was overjoyed to hear his former band mate’s voice recreated from an unreleased demo tape, but also acknowledges, “All of that is kind of scary … it’s the future.” One wonders if John Lennon would be so chill with the idea of his art being turned into an electronic abstraction he had no input in. With the proper software, any kid in their spare time could now make Sgt. Pepper’s Loney Heart Club 2. Yay?
From there, it only gets more surreal. How else would Audrey Hepburn choose to be remembered for eternity than selling chocolate? Evidently, they refused to let notorious chain-smoker Audrey amuse herself with her signature cigarette holder, because that would have been too realistic, god forbid. So they slapped a bon bon in ther palm instead. Thanks to software called facial-action-coding system, a team of effects artists were able to painstakingly reconstruct the deceased actress’ face, capturing every detail of her cranium down to every bone, muscle, and piece of cartilage. The dead will walk the earth again, Coco Channel cocktail dress and all.
Any Resemblance Is Purely Intentional
The last real legal obstacle — don’t worry about the artistic dilemma; no one else ever has — is the copyright system. DMCA claims are so harsh that chunks of YouTube commentary and fair use is crippled due to bogus claims. Yet, it seems that AI might conquer that conundrum long before humans ever will, all through the sheer power of money. As long as the celebrity or their family is paid, anything is legally permissible. More on that in a second. AI-produced art is not copyrightable on the other hand, thus producing one last stumbling block. That’s royalties, to be exact. Work produced by AI writers is not able to protected legally, thus not worth the trouble of producing. But that only pertains to books and screenplays, not performances. Shakespeare is safe for now, but you could use his face and use him to sell candy corn if you really felt like it.
When “hologram Tupac” (it wasn’t technically a hologram, ironically) beamed onto the stage of the 2012 Coachella concert, the reaction was one of drunken revelry mixed with disgust. The world came to no consensus if using a long-dead celebrity’s likeness without their consent was moving or creepy. And in case you had any doubts of the possibility of misuse, here’s fake Bruce Lee shilling for alcohol in 2013, his own words arbitrarily taken out of context and crammed into an advert for Johnnie Walker. Classy.
Not Even Lawyers Can Stop the Machines Now
Have you talked to your older relatives about post-mortem right of publicity? Depending on your celeb status, your voice and likeness might be worth up to $4 million. Just remember to file the correct paperwork with the IRS. Who speaks for the dead? Estate managers. There has never been a better time to be dead than right now. Hashtags on gravestones? Why not? We’re in dicey territory when the Grammys need to issue a decree that only humans can win awards, with the vague stipulation, “in a songwriting-based category, it has to have been written mostly by a human.” What does “mostly” mean? Who knows.
If auto-tune can make anyone Pavarotti, deep fakes can turn any schmoe into Daniel Day-Lewis. That decision implies that it is only a matter of time before AI will be routinely churning out masterpieces more artsy and aesthetic than Wes Anderson. They’ve already driven starving artists to, well, further starvation, winning awards. In 2022, Bruce Willis had to publicly deny rumors he had sold his likeness rights away to a company called Deepcake, which would have entitled them to copy and paste his face onto actors to make films. Before his death, Robin Williams signed a deal where CGI Williams could return to the screen. His digital doppelganger won’t hit the screen until 2039, and we can only imagine what plans studios will have for his reanimated visage then. Never say never on that Popeye sequel!
Whether it is legal or authorized, the AI-generated trend will never go away. So be prepared for anyone involved in making parodies and post-production work to get their mileage out of it. In the years since Tupac’s corpse’s performance in 2012, we still aren’t any closer to figuring out if this is disrespectful or a godsend for those wanting to make a living after they’re done living. “Rest in Peace”? That’s wishful thinking.