'Stop sending AI videos of my dad', says Robin Williams’ daughter

Zelda Williams, daughter of actor and comedian Robin Williams who died in 2014, has asked people to stop sending AI-generated videos of her father.

Robin Williams tragically took his own life aged 63, having been battling depression.

In a post on Instagram, Zelda Williams asked people to “Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad. Stop believing I wanna see it or that I'll understand, I don't and I won't.” Ms Williams had previously responded to an attempt to recreate her father’s voice in 2023 as “personally disturbing.”

Zelda Williams’ words come in response to a worrying trend on social media where pictures of people who have died are recreated and animated. Generative AI technology allows this kind of content to be created, alongside captions such as “bring your loved ones back to life.”

Ms Williams commented “To watch the legacies of real people be condensed down … just so other people can churn out horrible TikTok slop puppeteering them is maddening.”

For many the new AI technologies represent the cutting-edge future. In response to being on the receiving end of AI-generated videos, Ms Williams said “stop calling it ‘the future,’ AI is just badly recycling and regurgitating the past to be re-consumed.”

To those sending AI videos to her, Ms Williams had a simple message: “But please, if you've got any decency, just stop doing this to him and to me, to everyone even, full stop. It's dumb, it's a waste of time and energy, and believe me, it's NOT what he'd want.”