{"id":558136,"date":"2026-04-30T04:45:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T04:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/558136\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T04:45:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T04:45:10","slug":"society-has-no-choice-but-to-contend-with-ai-resurrected-val-kilmer-says-his-daughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/558136\/","title":{"rendered":"Society has no choice but to contend with AI-resurrected Val Kilmer, says his daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"

As uncomfortable as the AI-generated Val Kilmer may be, both ethically and aesthetically<\/a>, everyone involved with As Deep As The Grave has always maintained that Kilmer\u2019s family is cool with it<\/a>, so we can and probably should all be cool with it too. His daughter Mercedes even went on The Today Show<\/a> to co-sign the endeavor and hock up some classic pro-AI talking points, namely: AI is coming whether you like it or not, and, given that, making a movie with a high-tech puppet of a dead actor just makes sense.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Mercedes\u2019 view, the current use is ethical because Val agreed to it when he was alive and because it is working to create a structure for more actors and estates to license images in this way. \u201cIt started off as a way to overcome the limitations of his illness, but then it evolved into something that he really was like, \u2018Oh, wait. I have a chance to actually set a precedent,’\u201d the younger Kilmer says on Today, meaning \u201cset a precedent\u201d in a good way. Kilmer does address the \u201cabsolutely valid\u201d concern that the technology will be most harmful to younger artists precariously trying to break into the industry. \u201cI\u2019m a musician and a lot of people that I know are so scared of this technology,\u201d she says. But she\u2019s also the daughter of a very famous actor, and based on conversations she\u2019s had with other people who are established in the industry, some people \u201csee it as a way to protect that actors\u2019 ownership of their IP.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to contend with this technology one way or the other. And avoiding it, it\u2019s not necessarily the way,\u201d she continues, implying that As Deep As The Grave is an appropriate way to contend with this technology. \u201cIt\u2019s much easier to structure the rights if you proactively license something.\u201d Mercedes says it\u2019s not something her family would consider doing again, but also says there may be other exceptions down the road. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t just put his likeness in something without his permission, necessarily,\u201d she says. \u201cThere are certain things that he talked about, ways to use it, that we may do eventually. There may be video games based on characters that he made. Now we know that we\u2019re protected\u2026 my family can protect the use of that.\u201d <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As uncomfortable as the AI-generated Val Kilmer may be, both ethically and aesthetically, everyone involved with As Deep…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-558136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}