Zelda Williams, daughter of Robin Williams and director of Lisa Frankenstein, recently shared a heartfelt plea on her Instagram story, asking people to stop sending AI-generated videos of her late father, who passed away in 2014 at age 63.
“Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad,” Zelda wrote. “I don’t want to see them, and I won’t understand them. If you’re trying to troll me, I can handle it, but if you have any decency, stop doing this to him, to me, to everyone. It’s pointless, a waste of energy, and not what he would have wanted.”
She criticized the AI content for reducing real people’s legacies to shallow imitations: “Watching people take the essence of someone’s life and churn out horrible TikTok videos is maddening. You’re not creating art—you’re turning lives and history into over-processed garbage and forcing it on others for likes. Gross.”
Zelda also condemned the idea that AI represents the future: “It’s just recycling the past, poorly stitched together. You’re consuming a human centipede of content, while those at the front laugh and consume endlessly.”
This isn’t the first time Zelda has spoken out against AI recreations of her father. During the 2023 SAG-AFTRA discussions on AI, she called AI versions of Robin Williams “personally disturbing,” pointing out the ethical issues of using deceased actors without consent.
“I’ve seen people try to train AI to recreate actors who can’t consent, like Dad,” she wrote. “This isn’t theoretical—it’s very real. AI may mimic human effort, but it can never replace living actors creating characters with their own choices. At its worst, it’s a Frankenstein-like monstrosity, cobbled together from the worst parts of the industry.”
Zelda’s posts highlight her ongoing fight to protect her father’s legacy and call for respect in how AI is used in entertainment.
