Tom Hanks has suggested he could appear in new films long after his death as artificial intelligence (AI) continues to advance.
The double Oscar-winning actor said Hollywood stars and their lawyers are now scrambling to try to deal with the rise of the technology where performers could be digitally recreated “until kingdom come”.
Hanks says actors and their representatives are trying to figure out the legal ramifications of digitally recreating actors and that under current laws he could star in films forever. Speaking to the Adam Buxton podcast, Hanks suggested his film career could continue indefinitely despite the prospect of being “hit by a bus” at any moment.
“I can tell you that there are discussions going on in all of the guilds, all of the agencies, and all of the 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 said.
“What is a bonafide possibility right now is — 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.”
Hanks added he predicted the rise of AI technology when making the 2004 Christmas film The Polar Express.
He said: “This has always been lingering. The first time we did a movie that had a huge amount of our own data locked in a computer was a movie called The Polar Express which we made back around the year 2000."
The Daily Telegraph, London
