(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Keanu Reeves, the 58-year-old actor and star of the “John Wick” franchise, spoke out against the dangers of “deep fake” technology, criticized the fact that it comes with the lack of agency and said that artificial intelligence has some potentially dangerous implications.
Reeves shared his concerns about AI technology that can be used to manipulate video footage in a Tuesday interview with Wired.
He went so far as to add a clause to his every contract that would prohibit movie studios from digitally changing his scenes that goes beyond simple video editing.
Reeves said that he is frustrated with the lack of agency he may have when it comes to the deep fake technology.
“When you give a performance in a film, you know you’re going to be edited, but you’re participating in that,” he said. “If you go into deep fake land, it has none of your points of view. That’s scary.”
He then continued to discuss the potential implications of the deep fake technology.
“People are growing up with these tools. We’re listening to music already that’s made by AI in the style of Nirvana, there’s NFT digital art. It’s cool, like, ‘Look what the cute machines can make!’ But there’s a corporatocracy behind it that’s looking to control those things,” he said.
“Culturally, socially, we’re gonna be confronted by the value of real, or the non-value. And then what’s going to be pushed on us? What’s going to be presented to us? It’s this sensorium. It’s a spectacle. And it’s a system of control and manipulation.”
“We’re on our knees looking at cave walls and seeing the projections, and we’re not having the chance to look behind us,” he added, referring to the Plato theory of society where people are chained in cages and see only the reflections on the walls, instead of the real objects from the outside world.
Reeves’ comments come in the wake of a recent controversy when a popular video game live streamer apologized after his viewers saw browser tabs of the AI-generated porn images of his fellow internet personalities.