Robin Williams’ Instagram account brought back to fight ‘AI abuse’

Robin Williams’ children are taking over their father’s Instagram account after his daughter spoke out against the use of his AI likeness, as reported earlier by The Wrap. In a post on Tuesday, Zak, Zelda, and Cody Williams write that they want the late actor’s Instagram profile to be a “safe, trusted place where the stories, photos, videos, and memories shared reflect his legacy with authenticity, warmth, and care.”

A story posted to Zelda Williams’ own Instagram account expands on the decision to bring back her father’s profile, saying that it’s meant to help combat “rampant AI abuse,” according to The Wrap:

I’m sorry if anyone found Dad’s old page posting again to be triggering. Believe me, I know it’s a little strange. Making that space into one where people can find authentic clips and photos of him is one of the best ways we’ve now found to fight back against rampant AI abuse of his voice and likeness on here.

Robin Williams’ Instagram account remained inactive following his death in 2014. Last year, Zelda Williams asked fans to stop sending her AI-generated videos of her father. “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,” she wrote at the time.

Though some AI chatbots have restrictions in place to prevent users from generating images or videos with the AI likeness of a public figure or celebrity, these guardrails can still be bypassed. OpenAI’s now-shuttered Sora app became a hotbed for generating videos of copyrighted characters and celebrities, while Grok is still generating sexualized AI deepfakes of famous women, according to Wired.

Zelda, Zak, and Cody Williams add that they’re going to use their father’s Instagram account to share his “unique talent and humor with the world.”