Tom Hanks Warns About AI-Generated ‘Wonder Drug’ Ads Using His Likeness – Hollywood Life

Tom Hanks has issued a “public service announcement” from his official Instagram account to make clear that he is just not attempting to sell any drugs.

On Thursday, Aug. 29, the Oscar winner, 68, shared the message after it got here to light that there have been ads “falsely using [his] name, likeness, and voice to advertise miracle cures and wonder drugs.”

“These ads have been created without my consent, fraudulently, and thru AI,” Hanks wrote, without naming specific scams. “I even have nothing to do with these posts or the products and coverings, or the spokespeople touting these cures.”

The 2-time Academy Award winner added that while he does have type 2 diabetes, he only works with a “board-certified doctor regarding treatment.”

“DO NOT BE FOOLED. DO NOT BE SWINDLED. DO NOT LOSE YOUR HARD-EARNED MONEY,” Hanks concluded, signing off together with his name on the post he captioned, “EXTRA! EXTRA!! READ ALL ABOUT IT!!”

This isn’t the primary time Hanks has spoken out against artificial-intelligence versions of his likeness getting used without his permission. Back in October 2023, he warned his followers on Instagram a couple of promotional video for a dental plan using a computer-generated image of him, stating, “BEWARE!!”

“There’s a video on the market promoting some dental plan with an AI version of me. I even have nothing to do with it,” he wrote over a photograph of his AI-generated self.

The Forrest Gump actor had previously addressed the growing use of AI in creative industries, saying on The Adam Buxton Podcast in May that “this has at all times been lingering.”

“The primary time we did a movie that had an enormous amount of our own data locked in a pc — literally what we looked like — was a movie called The Polar Express,” he explained, referencing his work within the 2004 animated Christmas film.

“We saw this coming,” Hanks continued. “We saw that there was going to be this ability to take zeros and ones inside a pc and switch it right into a face and a personality. Now that has only grown a billionfold since then, and we see it all over the place.”

Earlier this summer, a bipartisan group of senators introduced the Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Protected (NO FAKES) Act, which might increase protection for people’ right to publicity by bolstering their legal claims over unauthorized uses of their voice and likenesses. These laws would pertain to each living celebrities in addition to those that have died.