Damn it, robots, stop using Tom Hanks for evil

Now, here’s one we’d like to hear Oprah grill Sam Altman and Bill Gates about: Tom Hanks hopped on social media tonight to warn his fans that AI scammers are using his voice and likeness to sell fake medicine. We here at The A.V. Club are not ethicists, and often find ourselves morally flummoxed by such complicated social dynamics as the “Give A Penny, Take A Penny” tray. But we’re fairly comfortable stating that “Using the face and voice of the planet’s most trusted Nice Guy actor to sell fake medicine to sick old people” qualifies as some fairly advanced form of absolutely vile shit.

Hanks posted about the scams on Instagram, in an announcement presented, in typewriter font, as being a “PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FROM TOM HANKS,” because the brand is extraordinarily strong. (Hanks also attached an “EXTRA! EXTRA!! READ ALL ABOUT IT!!”, thus raising the Dad Vibes saturation to nigh “stack of books about World War II bought as Christmas presents” levels.) “There are multiple ads over the internet falsely using my name, likeness and voice promoting miracle cures and wonder drugs,” Hanks asserts in his PSA. “These ads have been created without my consent, fraudulently, and through AI.” As noted by Variety, this isn’t the first time Hanks has had to issue warnings like this; he did something similar late last year, when a company selling a dental plan used a deepfake of him to try to make money.

Deepfakes and other methods of AI impersonation are currently operating in that gray area that happens when Congress is too confused by something to get any legislation on the books: There’s a bipartisan bill that would allow victims of deepfakes—especially sexually explicit ones, which are most of them—to sue the creators, but while it’s passed in the Senate, it’s still slowly moving through the House. There’s also the NO FAKES Act, which has picked up support from both the studios and SAG-AFTRA, and which would make creating fakes of a person without legal authorization a crime.

Hanks, for his part, ends his notification with an invocation of capslock and some serious “Watch the skies” shit, writing, “DO NOT BE FOOLED. DO NOT BE SWINDLED. DO NOT LOSE YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY.” Thanks, Dad.