Tom Hanks is warning fans about an artificial intelligence version of his likeness that is being used to promote a dental service.

What You Need To Know

  • Tom Hanks says an AI version of his image is being wrongfully used in a dental service advertisement

  • The 67-year-old actor posted a warning on Instagram Sunday

  • In April, Hanks told a podcaster that he "could be hit by a bus tomorrow, and that's it, but performances can go on and on and on and on."

  • AI protections are one of the main sticking points as the Screen Actors Guild resumes negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers Monday to end a strike that began in July

“BEWARE!!” the actor posted to Instagram Sunday, overlaying the words on an image that appears to be a couple decades old. “There’s a video out there promoting some dental plan with an AI version of me. I have nothing to do with it.”

Hanks spoke about the dangers of AI just a few weeks before the Writers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild both raised the issue in their contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

“We saw this coming,” the 67-year-old told British comedian Adam Buxton on a podcast in April. “We saw that there was going to be this ability to take zeros and ones inside a computer and turn it into a face and a character. Now that has only grown a billionfold since then, and we see it everywhere.”

In September, actor Stephen Fry claimed AI had been used to steal his voice for narration. The audiobook narrator for the “Harry Potter” series in England told Forbes his artificial voice could “have me read anything from a call to storm Parliament to hard porn, all without my knowledge and without my permission.”

While the Writers Guild recently won guarantees from the AMPTP that the studios would not use artificial intelligence to write or rewrite literary material, actors are concerned about their likenesses being used without their consent or compensation. The use of AI is one of several sticking points as SAG and AMPTP resume negotiations Monday for the first time since the actors’ strike began in July.

“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 to come up with the legal ramifications of my face and my voice — and everybody else’s — being our intellectual property.”

Hanks told Buxton he “could be hit by a bus tomorrow, and that’s it, but performances can go on and on and on and on. And outside of the understanding that it’s been done with AI or deepfake, there will be nothing to tell you that it’s not me and me alone.”

For now, Hanks has taken it upon himself to inform the public, even as AI’s use in film and television is expected to grow.

An approved AI version of Hanks will appear next year in the Robert Zemeckis feature, “Here.” Hanks stars as a younger version of himself created by the AI company Metaphysic. Co-star Robin Wright will be similarly “de-aged” for the project.