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Nor is Williams the only child of a cultural icon to be deluged with this problem. On the social media site formerly known as Twitter, Bernice King, youngest daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., co-signed Williams\u2019 plea with a seven-word declaration.<\/p>\n
\u201cI concur concerning my father,\u201d King wrote simply. \u201cPlease stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amidst the endless swamp of my social media feed, their cries for sanity stood out. I recognized the pain in them, as a fellow grieving daughter, though of course cannot precisely relate: my father was not a celebrity, and so I have, thankfully, not been inundated with fans manufacturing his image.<\/p>\n
Do any of those fans think they\u2019re helping? Is it a misguided desire to assuage? It\u2019s true that, in the six years since my father died, there hasn\u2019t been a day I didn\u2019t ache to see him again, to hold a new conversation, to hear him talk about the events of the world since he left.<\/p>\n
Yet one of the most crucial parts of grief, and of healing, is to find peace with the fact there is a bracket around life that is inviolable. That there will be no new memories, no new conversations; that the face of those we\u2019ve loved and lost, or their voice, existed once and never will again.<\/p>\n
So to be flooded with images of a departed loved one doing things they never did, or saying things they never said \u2014 this is not a kindness, but a torment. If a grieving relative isn\u2019t sufficiently far in their healing, it could even be dangerous, a siren song to slip into a mental world where the unbreakable wall of death is far more porous.<\/p>\n
A world where not even death is finite; where what existed is fungible with what didn\u2019t; where we cannot be sure what is a memory we held, and one fabricated for us to hold. What could happen to those who fall too deep into that world? And for that matter, what will happen to all of us, as we are thrust into that world without our consent?<\/p>\n
Williams\u2019 plea comes at a critical moment. The pace at which AI video generation is improving should terrify us. It\u2019s hard to believe, but it\u2019s been only a couple of years since early text-to-video models became popular, and already the entire internet is awash in fake videos that have become increasingly difficult to detect.<\/p>\n
Consider that, just two years ago, humans in AI-generated videos still frequently appeared with impossible anatomy \u2014 most commonly, an odd number of breasts or variable number of fingers. Those glaring signs of fakery are rare in the new models. Now, figures in videos can move, speak, and even sing with disturbing fidelity.<\/p>\n
The potential for abuse is limitless. On Sept. 30, when OpenAI unveiled its new Sora 2 video-generation platform, one developer showed off a video he\u2019d had it make with a quick text prompt: a mimicry of security camera footage showing OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shoplifting from Target, and being caught by a security guard.<\/p>\n
There were a few \u201ctells\u201d that the video was made by AI \u2014 a box on the shelf moved without the \u201cAltman\u201d figure touching it \u2014 but the overall effect was startlingly realistic. The video quality was appropriately grainy for its supposed source; the human figures moved and reacted to each other in largely realistic ways.<\/p>\n
What was most disturbing, however, was that developers proudly showed it off, apparently heedless to the obvious problem: it\u2019s not good to build a world in which anyone, without any special-effects training or resources, can whip up a video of a real person committing a crime that will fool most casual viewers.<\/p>\n
Now, anyone with a grudge can, with a few clicks of their keyboard, create images that could get people fired from jobs and estranged from their spouses \u2014 or change the course of local and global events. Even if we grow more savvy to the risk, the effect is corrosive: every day, we can trust what we see less and less.<\/p>\n
We are being shoved over the threshold of that world now, with little protection.<\/p>\n
The AI industry has shown little serious commitment to reducing these harms. As one measure, videos generated by Sora 2 emerge with a watermark, a self-promoting flash of the Sora 2 logo. Less than two weeks since its release, there are already many easily-accessible tools to remove those watermarks, leaving no sign the video was AI-generated.<\/p>\n
If the industry won\u2019t check itself enough, global governments must. Canada has explored legislation to regulate AI, though it was stalled in parliament earlier this year. We need to move faster, and more decisively. The capacity for irreparable damage to our lives, institutions and social fabric is far too vast.<\/p>\n
At a minimum, laws must ensure that AI cannot replicate the images or voices of any real people without their consent, and that every video generated by AI has some sort of unalterable, immediately visible label declaring it as such; and there must be a fast and sure way to enforce this. That is probably not enough to contain the danger, but it\u2019s a start.<\/p>\n
\n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n
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Ultimately, we have to get to a place where robust regulation ensures that boundaries of what is real and what isn\u2019t are not further eroded. That\u2019s especially true when it comes to the most essential part of ourselves, the one thing that most defines us in the world and can most damage us when stolen: our own image.<\/p>\n
Many will disagree. When Zelda Williams pleaded with the world to stop sending her videos that amounted to \u201cdisgusting over-processed hot dogs out of the lives of human beings\u201d like her father, at least some AI fans appeared to misunderstand the source of her pain, and her anger.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t worry,\u201d one person wrote, in a comment. \u201cIt will get more realistic soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s precisely the problem, of course. But as I considered the comment further, I realized it wasn\u2019t actually a misguided attempt to assure her that things would get better. It was a taunt \u2014 or even, given the underlying belief that the essential likeness of a person is free to take and warp and control, a threat.<\/p>\n
melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca<\/p>\n
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Melissa Martin Melissa Martin reports and opines for the Winnipeg Free Press.<\/p>\n Every piece of reporting Melissa produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print \u2014 part of the Free Press\u2018s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press\u2019s history and mandate<\/a>, and learn how our newsroom operates<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Reporter-at-large
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