Deepfakes are absolutely everywhere these days. And while it’s technically impressive that technology is capable of creating something so intricate and believable, it’s also kind of terrifying. Even Keanu Reeves has dubbed deepfakes “scary” and says he won’t allow movie houses to digitally alter his face in any way.
In an interview with Wired, the 58-year-old actor, who’s promoting the release of “John Wick: Chapter 4,” said that he completely disagrees with deepfake technology. So much so that he requires a special clause in all of his contracts barring companies from altering his work in any way.
“Yeah, digitally. I don’t mind if someone takes a blink out during an edit,” he explained. “But early on, in the early 2000s, or it might have been the ’90s, I had a performance changed. They added a tear to my face, and I was just like, ‘Huh?!’ It was like, I don’t even have to be here.”
Keanu Reeves believes deepfakes have become way too normalized
Keanu Reeves particularly hates deepfakes as it basically erases everything that makes a performance special. “When you give a performance in a film, you know you’re going to be edited, but you’re participating in that. If you go into deepfake land, it has none of your points of view,” he explained.
“That’s scary. It’s going to be interesting to see how humans deal with these technologies. They’re having such cultural, sociological impacts, and the species is being studied. There’s so much ‘data’ on behaviors now.”
Keanu Reeves is also saddened by how normalized things like deepfakes have become over the past few years. Recalling a chat with a 15-year-old fan, Reeves said that Neo was fighting for reality in “The Matrix.” However, the teen had an odd reply: “Who cares if it’s real?”
“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,” Reeves lamented. “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. 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?”
