Zelda Williams Condemns AI Videos of Her Father Robin Williams: “Please, Just Stop”

Zelda Williams, the daughter of beloved actor and comedian Robin Williams, has issued a heartfelt plea urging people to stop sending her AI-generated videos of her late father, calling the trend “gross,” “disturbing,” and “not what he’d want.”

Taking to Instagram on Tuesday, the 35-year-old filmmaker and actor wrote: “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.”

Zelda’s message comes amid a growing wave of AI-generated “resurrections” in Hollywood of deceased celebrities, from Michael Jackson to Betty White, circulating on TikTok and YouTube. Many of these clips use tools like OpenAI’s Sora 2 to generate lifelike videos, often presented under the guise of tribute or nostalgia.

But for Zelda Williams, the practice is far from a loving homage. “You’re not making art,” she continued. “You’re making disgusting, over-processed hotdogs out of the lives of human beings, out of the history of art and music.”

A Legacy Exploited by Algorithms

Robin Williams, who tragically died by suicide in 2014 at the age of 63, remains one of Hollywood’s most adored figures — celebrated for classics like Mrs. Doubtfire, Good Will Hunting, Dead Poets Society, and Aladdin.

In recent years, however, digital recreations of Williams’ voice and likeness have appeared online without consent. In 2023, Zelda supported the SAG-AFTRA campaign against AI exploitation in Hollywood, calling attempts to replicate her father’s voice “personally disturbing.”

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She warned that such recreations represent not just emotional harm, but a larger ethical and artistic crisis: “Living actors deserve a chance to create characters with their choices, to voice cartoons, to put their human effort and time into performance. These recreations are, at their best, poor facsimiles — at their worst, Frankensteinian monsters.”

Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda Williams’ post

Celebrities and Unions Join the Backlash

The controversy also echoes industry-wide fears. Following the unveiling of “AI actor Tilly Norwood,” created by Dutch comedian Eline Van der Velden, both SAG-AFTRA and Hollywood stars voiced alarm.

In a statement, the actors’ union said: “It has no life experience, no emotion, and audiences aren’t interested in watching content untethered from the human experience.”

Actress Emily Blunt echoed Zelda’s concerns, calling the idea “really scary” and urging agencies to “stop taking away our human connection.”

Robin Williams’ Daughter, Zelda Williams’ Post

The Human Cost of Digital Immortality

While some fans argue that AI offers a way to “preserve” icons like Robin Williams, Zelda believes it does the opposite — reducing human legacy to algorithmic mimicry.

“AI isn’t the future,” she concluded. “It’s just badly recycling and regurgitating the past to be re-consumed. You are taking in the Human Centipede of content… while the folks at the front laugh and laugh.”

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Her words have struck a chord across social media, reigniting debate about the boundaries of digital art, consent, and grief in the AI era.

For now, Zelda’s plea serves as both a daughter’s defense of her father’s memory and a broader call for decency in how technology handles the dead — reminding fans that some things are meant to stay human.