Fact Check: Is Tom Hanks dead? AI death date interview claim explored

Modified May 17, 2023 06:40 GMT

American actor Tom Hanks recently reflected upon the possibility of appearing in movies after his demise. While appearing on the latest episode of The Adam Buxton podcast, the 66-year-old talked about artificial intelligence and how he can still star in movies "from now until kingdom come," by recreating his image.

Hanks said:

“What is a bona fide possibility right now, if I wanted to, [is] 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."

Pointing out the usage of artificial intelligence in the films, Hanks said:

“Anybody can now recreate themselves at any age they are by way of AI or deep fake technology … I could be hit by a bus tomorrow and that’s it, but my performances can go on and on and on. Outside of the understanding that it’s been done by AI or 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.”

However, Hanks' latest statements sparked debate online, with many claiming that an AI Tom Hanks also spoke the statement mentioned above. While several netizens assumed that the actor has died, it must be noted that he is actually alive and the speculations came from what he said during the interview.

Netizens are wondering whether the AI-version of Hanks also appeared for the interview (Image via Twitter)

Tom Hanks revealed that several agencies are in talks about protecting his face and voice as intellectual property

In the same episode of The Adam Buxton podcast, Tom Hanks said that the recent developments in artificial intelligence and deep fakes are making movie agents write contracts to protect actors' faces and voices as intellectual property.

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

However, he said that people would be able to differentiate his deep fake version on screens without fail.

“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.”

Moreover, Tom Hanks added that technology has been on a boost for many years and we have seen the digitized version of movie characters before as well.

While speaking about Robert Zemeckis’ 2004 directorial film, The Polar Express, he said:

“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.”

The technology of deep fake and artificial intelligence is also seen in the latest Indiana Jones film where Harrison Ford was de-aged so that he could resemble his appearance in the 1981's film Raiders of the Lost Ark.

As per his IMDb profile, Tom Hanks will produce and executive produce several forthcoming projects like Beautiful, No Better Place to Die, Here, Masters of the Air, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3.