Tom Hanks Warns Fans Against Internet Scams Using His AI Image: 'Do Not Lose Your Hard Earned Money'

Mar. 15, 2025

Tom Hanks in Beverly Hills, California, on Jan. 5, 2020.Photo: Getty

The two-timeAcademy Awardwinner, 68,posted the warningon Thursday, Aug. 29, beginning, “There are multiple ads over the internet falsely using my name, likeness, and voice promoting miracle cures and wonder drugs.”

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

TheForrest Gumpactor went on to say in his statement, “Ihave type 2 diabetes, and I ONLY work with my board certified doctor regarding my treatment.”

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

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This isn’t the first time Hanks has spoken out against artificial-intelligence versions of his likeness generated without his permission. Back in September 2023, hewarned his followers on Instagramabout a promotional video for a dental plan using a computer-generated image of him.

“BEWARE!! There’s a video out there promoting some dental plan with an AI version of me. I have nothing to do with it,” Hankswrote over the photoof his AI counterpart from the clip.

TheMan Called Ottostar had previously addressed the growing use of AI in creative industries, saying onThe Adam Buxton Podcastin May that “this has always been lingering.”

“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 calledThe Polar Express,” he explained, referencing his work in 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 computer and turn it into a face and a character. Now that has only grown a billionfold since then, and we see it everywhere.”

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Tom Hanks in London on Dec. 5, 2023.Max Cisotti/Dave Benett/Getty

Max Cisotti/Dave Benett/Getty

TheElvisactor then said this shift inevitably affects contracts and how they need to protect actors' likenesses 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,” Hanks explained.

He went on, “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.”

source: people.com