Actor Tom Hanks believes AI could give his career longevity

From silent black and white images, to sound, colour and then greenscreen to CGI and now AI – technology evolves as the world evolves.

Speaking via The Adam Buxton podcast, Hanks commented: "What is a bona fide 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. Anybody can now recreate themselves at any age they are by way of AI or deep fake technology – because I could be hit by a bus tomorrow and that's it, but performances can go on and on and on and on.”

And in the world of movies, technology has always played a pivotal role in transitioning the user experience to the next level, and now AI may be able to ensure that the show goes on and that our greatest personalities are never lost.

"Outside the understanding of AI and deep fake, there'll be nothing to tell you that it's not me and me alone. And it's going to have some degree of lifelike quality. That's certainly an artistic challenge but it's also a legal one."

Data DNA

Hanks points out that there are already discussions with legal teams about the ramifications of using the technology and what it could mean for not only the future of movies, but also a person’s IP.

“I can tell you that there is 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.

"Without a doubt people will be able to tell [that it's AI], but the question is will they care? There are some people that won't care, that won't make that delineation.

“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.

"We saw this coming. We saw that there was going to be this ability to take zeros and ones from inside a computer and turn it into a face and a character. That has only grown a billion-fold since then and we see it everywhere."

Hanks likens AI and deep fakes to Gutenberg’s printing press: “A long time ago this guy invented a machine that could create lies that would be taken as absolute truth by anybody who read them and decided to believe them as opposed to examine them, and that guy’s name was Gutenberg and he invented to printing press.

“This is a super version of that printing press. AI / Deepfake anything will be able to lie … and there are going to be some people that are going to put huge stake in what is authentic and what is not, just as there is going to be a ton of people ain’t going to care.”