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The struggle is real:
2025:
Robin Williams' daughter pleads for people to stop sending AI videos of her dad
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45505626
2023:
Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda slams AI for recreating her father’s voice
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37742529
4chan and Twitter: "Define shame"
i mean.. i get it.
i'd never do it.
but this is the internet. people are making AI videos of everyone and everything.
no offense, but RW isn't special there are many famous people out there and it just comes with the territory of being famous.
if it is a good AI video and i think it is funny or good, i'll give it a like and move on.
you're free to downvote me if you disagree, because either way, in this case both up and down votes prove me right.
edit: since I can't reply directly for a bit, here's some updates: (^ = my reply)
clipsy: So your worldview boils down to: if something happens a lot, it can't be bad?
^ so you want to force/compel people to your world view? feel free to join Mao, Stalin, and other [famous - lol] people who did the same!
Barbing: Where are you seeing AI edits?
^ the internet exists, you can go on social media like X, IG, Reddit, etc. unless you're holier than others and "better" and thus don't go anywhere on the internet because you're too busy changing the world or whatever from your high horse
dghlsakjg: Upvotes and downvotes do not give any validity to an argument. Sorry it doesn’t make sense to you.
^ its okay. you're one of those people who obsesses over what other people think, and live your life that way.
clipsy: > i mean.. i get it. (point 1) i'd never do it. (point 2) And?
Essentially: it happens a lot so it must be OK. Lovely morals.
People don't care about a random murder victim as much as they care about Rob Reiner; murder is still wrong and deplorable.
Whiny bullshit.
^ lol
popalchemist: The difference here is he committed suicide, so it is obviously extremely triggering for his daughter to see him saying random (often racist or otherwise created for shock value) trash content as if he's still alive. You have low empathy, in case you didn't know.
^ weaponized empathy. my point was that unless you compel/force people, this is going to happen with people making AI edits. and again... i wouldn't do it. if it was a "good" AI edit, something "positive" (in my world view, something that brings a smile), then I will like it.
yes, AND, if your father was dead and people were desecrating him daily, would this "logic" of yours stop you from feeling that saying something is appropriate?
(No. Come on.)
i see AI edits of living people like sama or dario every day, various politicians, actors from various movies, etc.
i see AI edits of people who aren't here anymore like that guy charlie kirk or george floyd (to pick examples from "both" sides), i saw ai edits of alan rickman (guy who played Snape in happy Potter), and there are edits of napoleon or others.
if my dad was a famous actor known by literally 100s of millions of people, that was my dad's choice to bring that on himself. just being real.
people trying to compel other people is just an L take
So your worldview boils down to: if something happens a lot, it can't be bad?
Where are you seeing AI edits?
The difference here is he committed suicide, so it is obviously extremely triggering for his daughter to see him saying random (often racist or otherwise created for shock value) trash content as if he's still alive.
You have low empathy, in case you didn't know.
I'm Lutheran, and we take a very dim view of suicide.
However, RW was going through hell on earth with his diagnoses and the progression of this disease. Many of us don't view what he did as a willful destruction of the life that God gave him.
If you're consuming "AI edits" of Sam and Dario "every day", that explains a lot about your comments here.
incants magical spell so that I'm always right!
Checkmate atheists, or something.
No, they really don't.
it means both are correct stances to have, sorry it doesn't make sense to you
Feel free to ELI5, I'll be waiting with bated breath.
in my post i said:
i mean.. i get it. (point 1) i'd never do it. (point 2)
i also said, it is the internet and people will do that because famous people are... famous... and if there's an AI video of a famous person that I do like, i will give it a like.
if Robin Williams was some guy who worked as a cashier at Trader Joe's his whole life nobody would care
maybe Robin Williams should have never been an actor then he'd be unknown to the masses, like 99% of us on HN
And?
Essentially: it happens a lot so it must be OK. Lovely morals.
People don't care about a random murder victim as much as they care about Rob Reiner; murder is still wrong and deplorable.
Whiny bullshit.
Upvotes and downvotes do not give any validity to an argument.
Sorry it doesn’t make sense to you.
Bob Barker and Wilford Brimley both took it pretty hard on Sora.
I don't remember seeing any RW content, but there was some John Lennon stuff. He was mostly in good taste, but I remember seeing something and being, uncomfortable with it.
I don't really see why Bob Barker should be any less protected, then John Lennon or Robin Williams. None of these people were saints.
But there is or at least used to be deference provided to certain people or establishments.
I haven't seen this video that was so upsetting, but perhaps it's not the reanimation so much as the content. Some of it is so obviously satire it's not to be taken seriously.
But, I remember somebody used Bruce Lee as a vessel to spread the gospel on Sora. I had to frown at that, as it was not how he would have behaved.
You seem to be trying to argue “this is actually fine” but what you’re actually saying is “I do not care what the family want, I will continue to enjoy the thing they hate”.
So… ok? You can go and knock over headstones in graveyards too. So what? It doesn’t prove anything except you’re a jackass.
If what you mean is “She is wrong to ask for this, our entertainment is more important than her grief”, then, well, I guess that’s an argument you can make, but you haven’t actually made the argument.
I remember being stunned by Mork from Ork. Then watched as the same guy grew into one of the most iconic and loved humans on Earth. Given the amount of brain share that he earned it's kind of inevitable that so many people try to bring him back. I hope his daughter can also feel the love in it.
But shazbot to anyone who goes rule 34 on him.
There's a few different ways to look at this.
1. You appreciate Robin Williams and were he here right now judging you for how you honor his memory, would he approve?
2. Robin Williams is not here, or anywhere, so then if he were would he approve of you bringing pain to someone he loved dearly? Why would you do that to Robin Williams?
3. Robin Williams is not here, or anywhere, so then nothing matters and I bet I could get some views.
It's difficult to see love in these acts when they seem to be fundamentally selfish. Not at all what Robin Williams would do.
Perfectly stated. Thank you.
"Love is the most selfish of all the passions." — Alexandre Dumas
Should one not be free to invoke the visages of Einstein, Socrates, Julius Caesar, Jesus Christ (whichever version - and there are so many!), Genghis Khan, Confucius, et al.?
What about when poking fun at Hitler, such as Kung Fury and Jojo Rabbit do? Off limits?
Can one paint Bob Ross in a sci-fi setting? Is that unethical? Is it okay so long as a "real" artist does it and not an "AI artist"? Or can we seriously never depict him again because someone might get angry?
"Mr. Rogers in a blood-stained sweater"?
Come on!
And we can't animate Bruce Lee? Or put him on stickers? Or have him in new movies? (Nevermind how Quentin Tarantino did him wrong.)
When I grew up Elvis effigies were everywhere. And I mean everywhere. The people who liked this stuff are mostly dead or retired now so you don't see it as much, but it used to be a big deal. Really big deal.
So we can't do that anymore?
Abraham Lincoln hunts vampires for Christ's sake...
I'm glad you're asking. If you notice no one has said, especially Zelda, that you can't do these things. Obviously you can. You have access to a computer. The question you should be asking is should you do these things?
Also, this a good list of false equivalences. Robin Williams, when public, was empathetic, emotional, and arguably humanist. His memory isn't a caricature from people who have never known him, as you would see from Star Trek holo-deck episodes featuring Leonardo Da Vanci. His memory is something that is deeply important to people who are living. Some of those people simply appreciated his art and his behavior. One of those people is his daughter. You don't get to say what is right or wrong here. No one's going to stop you if you want to make a video of Robin Williams taking the Siegfried Oath, but you should understand why it is wrong.
Doesn’t the should part just completely ignore how we all know the world actually works which is kind of its own form of insanity. We humans can’t be trusted to follow basic rules like traffic laws. Right and wrong cease to matter much when 1) I want to be selfish and do what I please and 2) there’s technically nobody being harmed, feelings aside. But even then, from a net perspective, there’s probably many more people getting enjoyment from these AI videos than the people who are saddened by them.
It sucks for Zelda this saddens her so much, but if I were in her shoes it’s something I know I can’t control and so I’d try to embrace or ignore it.
These arguments seem so quaint, like reading a letter from WW2. We live in the AI age! Wake up people, these things are happening and will not ever stop, we are not going back.
No. Just because lots of people do a thing does not make it acceptable, and "people are going to keep doing it" is not a valid reason to not try to stop it.
It’s never too late to start being a decent person to your fellow human.
Someone in the past probably said something similar:
"glove slap I demand satisfaction. Pistols at dawn. This is how we settle problems and there's no going back now." God made man and Colt made them equal, yes?
The current usage of AI is similarly unrefined and out of hand.
Robin Williams himself famously did humorous impersonations of recently-deceased celebrities and politicians. He was an irreverent comedian. You guys need to relax.
Yeah… he did them. He didn’t tell a computer to mock up a realdoll of them and share it for clicks.
Yes. He did it. In person. Putting in, you know, actual work and character studies.
Since you mentioned love, I have a question for you:
Would people still make AI videos of him like this if the attention economy didn’t exist or clicks wouldn’t generate money?
The irony here is that this article is now a giant invitation to everyone else who just found out about this to pile on and do the exact opposite
It's called the Streisand effect - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
It's actually not the Streisand effect. The Streisand effect is about trying to smother a controversy and, in the process, breathing life into it.
Zelda is not exercising power or suppressing a controversy. This is just old fashioned dickheadedness. A generous interpretation would be juvenile trolling since they know their mark is vulnerable.
Typically a Streisand effect involves filing a lawsuit to try to stop something, which then raises awareness more broadly and makes the problem you’re suing to correct worse. In the canonical example, it’s “everyone stop taking pictures of my house!”, now pictures of your house are everywhere.
With a reasonably more generous definition, this case can indeed be considered a Streisand effect, if the problem gets worse by calling attention to it because now more idiots know about it. But a lawsuit would seal the deal!
She has now asked three times, in 2023 about his voice, in 2025 about the videos, and again today. What changed between them is not the technology, it is what she is asking for. The first time it was stop. Now it is have some shame. That is someone who has worked out there is nobody to appeal to, only an audience, and asking an audience for restraint has never scaled. The enforcement falls on the family, personally, every round, because it does not fall on anyone else.
Zelda Williams is getting the AI videos forwarded to her by fans.
People who are Robin Williams fans aren't making AI videos of him.
The kind of people who are making videos of him are people trying to get engagement on social media.
Either building an audience to then be an "influencer", or to sell the account to a marketing firm who will then use it to kickstart an online brand.
Marketing company has a client with some stupid new kitchen gadget, so they buy a pumped up account that had Robin Williams memes intermixed with some stolen baking/cooking cartoons and memes.
It's always about money...
Are people here not even reading the article?
The video Robin's daughter referenced in her tweet is being circulated as a "private video" of him. In other words, people are claiming it's a real video, or being led to believe it's a real video. It's not and therefore this isn't some misguided AI-generated act of love. It's deception, almost certainly to garner and possibly monetize "attention".
Unfortunately, AI content creators have no shame, and neither do social media content curation algorithms; in the current configuration of the world, those two entities form a closed loop that produces and serves this shameful content to unwilling bystanders. From a God’s-eye perspective it is easy to say “we should change this system so this doesn’t happen”, but from within the system each participant can only say “let us follow our incentives to become slightly more rich than other participants” (and any entity that might’ve once held a God’s-eye view along with the power to make such a change has long since abdicated their role).
It is decent microcosm of the state of the world if you’re looking to understand why younger generations seem so fatalistically, nihilistically depressed - they are simply aware that nobody can break these vicious cycles.