Originally published at: Tom Hanks complains of fake AI Tom Hanks in online ad | Boing Boing
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Not that I 'd ever want to be a celebrity, but the game of whack-a-mole they’ll now spend the rest of their lives (and afterlives, per @Grey_Devil’s link) playing against AI deepfake sleazeballs makes the idea even more unappealing.
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Tom Hanks? Looking at the thumbnail, I thought the picture was supposed to be Vin Diesel,
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Robo Vin Diesel? Then you’d really want to beware!
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I only listen to pre-AI versions of digitally created Tom Hanks when choosing my dental plans.
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Trick question. Vin Diesel is a robot (have you seen his acting?)
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If AI is weaponizing our most trustworthy celebrities, I feel it’s urgent that we build faraday cages around Dolly Parton and Wil Wheaton immediately.
Edit: spelling
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I went looking for this AI ad out of curiosity about its plausibility and distance from the Uncanny Valley.
What I found was… nothing. None of the stories contain a link to the ad; none of the posts on Reddit about this story include a link in the comments; and neither YouTube, Google, Bing, nor any other search engines I tried have links to it.
I’m wondering if this ad actually exists, or if Tom Hanks was, unwittingly or not, raising an alarm about a false story.
I was also interested in the number of people who are eager to comment on the ad without having seen it, or even searched for it.
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Not that i (would dare to) doubt Tom Hanks, yet we may expect (particularly in the trumpier regions) to hear cornered accused saying “It wasn’t me on that video, it was a fiendish A.I.!!” (so quickly incorporate a business reputed to present court admissible evidence of A.I. fakery or the lack thereof; could use Max Headroom as a corporate logo)
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Saw a similar story of Mr. Beast warning folks about an deepfaked ad that uses his likeness.
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Exactly. It makes no sense that he’d bring attention to it if he wasn’t sure. Celebrities tend not to cry wolf over matters concerning their images, especially not smart and well-resourced ones like Hanks.
My guess is that Hanks and his people discovered the ad and sued it away. They know that the ad might still be floating around out there on the Internet in eternity so he’s covering his bases and highlighting a new problem in the media and advertising space.
As for the ad itself, I have no problem commenting sight unseen that it was produced for a sleazeball company selling what is very likely a scam product. Sorry if that disappoints anyone.
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best dental plan. strongest teeth. there aren’t many ways to prove this outside of cracking walnuts and gnawing passersby
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I doubt AI Tom Hanks will try to bite anyone, but AI TomHanks might attempt to convert them into paperclips.
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It is crazy, though, how many media entities are reporting on it without checking it out. I know this is off-topic, but it’s one of my pet peeves of our current state of “journalism.” It’s just a bunch of “he said, she said,” in a lot of cases. I mean, there are articles about this in dozens of outlets considered valid journalism.
I took the comment above as disappointment of that crappy reporting, not of us here, esp since no one here has actually commented about the ad, just the likelihood of misuse of AI. 
I don’t think Hanks is lying, and I get not wanting to link to or drive traffic to the ad if it’s still up. But it would make sense to offer a little more detail if the reporters had found anything, like who produced it or where it was showing up.
I’m just ticked about lazy journalism, though.
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Having read through this thread, are we sure it’s not an alternative AI Tom Hanks complaining about an AI Tom Hanks?
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How do we know you’re not an AI Tom Hanks???
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Have you mentioned this to anyone else?
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