Robin Williams' daughter Zelda Williams pleads with fans to stop creating AI videos of her late dad

Zelda Williams, the daughter of late comedy icon Robin Williams, used her Instagram Stories to deliver a heartfelt message, one aimed squarely at people creating and sharing AI-generated videos of her father.

“Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad, stop believing I wanna see it or that I’ll understand, I don’t and I won’t,” she wrote.

For Zelda Williams, the trend wasn’t just uncomfortable; it was a distortion of everything her father stood for. Zelda Williams described the practice as emotionally exhausting, saying it stripped away the humanity behind real art.

“To watch the legacies of real people be condensed down to ‘this vaguely looks and sounds like them so that’s enough,’ just so other people can churn out horrible TikTok slop puppeteering them is maddening.”

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Zelda Williams drew a line between creativity and consumption in her fierce AI critique

Zelda Williams's frustration built with every sentence on her Instagram stories. Her dislike for the recent misuse of AI technology was evident in her opinion, as she shared:

“You’re not making art, you’re making disgusting, over-processed hotdogs out of the lives of human beings, out of the history of art and music, and then shoving them down someone else’s throat hoping they’ll give you a little thumbs up and like it. Gross.”

Zelda Williams then concluded her post with a cutting remark on the notion that AI represents progress.

“And for the love of EVERYTHING, stop calling it ‘the future,’ AI is just badly recycling and regurgitating the past to be re-consumed. You are taking in the Human Centipede of content, and from the very very end of the line, all while the folks at the front laugh and laugh, consume and consume.”

Her words echoed the growing anxiety among artists who fear technology may one day erase the boundary between tribute and exploitation.

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Zelda Williams had been cautioning against AI imitations of Robin Williams long before her latest plea

Long before her recent plea, Zelda Williams had already drawn a line in the sand. The actor-turned-director of Lisa Frankenstein (2024) had warned that technology’s urge to resurrect the past could come at a heavy cost. Back in 2023, she joined the Screen Actors Guild’s push against the use of AI in entertainment, posting a detailed statement on Instagram that captured both her alarm and her weariness.

“I’ve witnessed for YEARS how many people want to train these models to create/recreate actors who cannot consent, like Dad. This isn’t theoretical, it is very very real." she shared

“I’ve already heard AI used to get his ‘voice’ to say whatever people want and while I find it personally disturbing, the ramifications go far beyond my own feelings. These recreations are, at their very best, a poor facsimile of greater people, but at their worst, a horrendous Frankensteinian monster, cobbled together from the worst bits of everything this industry is, instead of what it should stand for,” she added.

Her words, written nearly a decade after Robin Williams’ death at 63, felt both protective and prophetic.

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Scarlett Johansson condemned deepfake video featuring her and other celebrities

Zelda Williams was not alone in raising alarm over artificial intelligence. According to a Guardian report published on 13 February 2025, Scarlett Johansson also voiced concern about what she described as the “imminent dangers of AI” after a deepfake video featuring her and other Jewish celebrities went viral.

The clip included AI-generated likenesses of more than a dozen well-known figures, among them David Schwimmer, Jerry Seinfeld, Drake, Adam Sandler, Steven Spielberg, and Mila Kunis. It opened with a digital recreation of Johansson wearing a T-shirt printed with a raised middle finger, a Star of David and the name Kanye. Set to an electronic remix of Hava Nagila, the video ended with the slogan:

“Enough is enough. Join the fight against antisemitism.”

Other stars depicted included Sacha Baron Cohen, Jack Black, Natalie Portman, Adam Levine, Ben Stiller, and Lenny Kravitz. In a statement to People, Johansson confirmed that the footage had reached her through friends and family.

“It has been brought to my attention by family members and friends, that an AI-generated video featuring my likeness, in response to an antisemitic view, has been circulating online and gaining traction, I am a Jewish woman who has no tolerance for antisemitism or hate speech of any kind. But I also firmly believe that the potential for hate speech multiplied by AI is a far greater threat than any one person who takes accountability for it. We must call out the misuse of AI, no matter its messaging, or we risk losing a hold on reality,” she explained.

Zelda Williams has spent years protecting her father’s image from digital distortion. Her message remained the same: art, at its core, depended on consent, emotion, and authenticity. And those were things Robin Williams gave freely in life but could never give again through a screen.