The actor speaks out because a fake of him is being used for dental care advertising.
Tom Hanks draws his Instagram followers’ attention to the increasingly frequent appearance of deep fakes and gives comprehensive warnings. He himself recently fell victim to this illegal AI scam. There is currently a video circulating on the Internet that advertises dental care – the advertising protagonist is a man who looks very similar to the Forrest Gump actor. But instead of making himself available for the tooth promo, he says it was a Hanks deep fake.
Deep fakes are images, audio formats and videos created with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) that appear deceptively real. Just like the supposed dental care clip with Tom Hanks. The 67-year-old emphasizes: “I have nothing to do with it!” For a better understanding of what it’s about, Hanks shares a screenshot of the false advertising video in his Instagram post.
In May 2023, Tom Hanks was a guest on “The Adam Buxton” podcast and talked about the possibility of using AI to continue appearing as an actor in films even after his death. Through the use of AI, the voice, face, etc. of a wide variety of people could be artificially imitated and used even after their death. However, in his opinion, exactly how something like this could happen needs to be checked beforehand by unions, agencies and lawyers in order to protect the actors’ identities.