A promotion using an AI generated version of Tom Hanks has the actor fighting back
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Tom Hanks is warning fans about a potential AI-generated scam.
The "Forrest Gump" actor says his name and likeness are being used without his consent in a dental promotion, and that users should "beware."
"There's a video out there promoting some dental plan with an AI version of me. I have nothing to do with it," he wrote, signing his name in a post on Instagram.
Tom Hanks condemned a dental promotion using his name and likeness to promote their plan. (Mustafa Yalcin/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
A representative for Hanks did not immediately return Fox News Digital's request for comment. It is unclear where the image originated.
Hanks recently gave his own two cents on artificial intelligence – noting that its use in the industry is nothing new but has "always been" lingering.
"The first time we did a movie that had a huge amount of our own data locked in a computer, literally what we looked like, was a movie called ‘The Polar Express,'" Hanks said on "The Adam Buxton Podcast" about his 2004 animated film that used the technology.
Film preparation for "The Polar Express" included motion capture. (Warner Brothers/Alamy)
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"And we saw this coming. We saw that there was going to be this ability to take 0s and 1s inside a computer and turn it into a face and a character. Now, that is only grown a billion-fold since then, and we see it everywhere. And I can tell you that there is discussions going on in all of the guilds, all of the agencies and all of legal firms in order to come up with the legal ramifications of my face and my voice – and everybody else's – being our intellectual property," he added.
"If I wanted to, I could get together and pitch a series of seven movies that would star me in them in which I would be 32 years old, from now until kingdom come. Anybody can now recreate themselves at any age they are by way of AI or deepfake technology," Hanks said. "Because, look, I could be hit by a bus tomorrow, and that's it, but my performances can go on and on and on and on, and outside the understanding that it's been done with AI or deepfake, there will be nothing to tell you that it's not me and me alone. And it's going to have some degree of lifelike quality. And that certainly is an artistic challenge, but it's also a legal one."
Tom Hanks has appeared in several projects that use artificial intelligence, including "The Polar Express" and "Here." (Taylor Hill/FilmMagic/Getty Images)
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Hanks also questioned if people would care whether something was real or fake in this growing age of technology.
"There are some people that won't care, that won't make that delineation," Hanks said before likening AI to the printing press.
"This is a super attenuated version of that printing press. AI, deepfake, anything will be able to lie just as well as they can go ahead [and] be able [to] tell the truth.… Some people that are going to… put [a] huge stake in what is authentic and what is not. Just as there's going to be a ton of people that ain't going to care."
Caroline Thayer is an entertainment writer for Fox News Digital. Follow Caroline Thayer on Twitter at @carolinejthayer. Story tips can be sent to
