‘You Lose Your Agency’: Keanu Reeves Calls Deepfakes ‘Scary,’ Says His Movie Contracts Forbid Digital Editing

Keanu Reeves We were not happy with “deepfakes,” artificial intelligence Technology that can be used for manipulating video footage during an interview published Tuesday.

The 58-year old actor spoke Wired that he even added a clause to his movie contracts prohibiting studios from digitally altering scenes he’s in. 

“Yeah, digitally. I don’t mind if someone takes a blink out during an edit,” Reeves spoke to the publication. “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.”

“What’s frustrating about that is you lose your agency,” The “John Wick” Star said it all during his tirade against deepfakes. “When you give a performance in a film, you know you’re going to be edited, but you’re participating in that.”

He continued: “If you go into deepfake land, it has none of your points of view. 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.”

Reeves noted that a teenager asked this question “who cares if it’s real?” Reeves believes that following this path could lead to trouble, during a recent conversation.

“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,” Wired spoke with Reeves “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,” He stated.

“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?” Reeves asked. “It’s this sensorium. It’s spectacle. And it’s a system of control and manipulation. We’re on our knees looking at cave walls and seeing the projections, and we’re not having the chance to look behind us.”

The topic of fake technology was front and center in the news this month, as a popular streamer for video games issued an apology after he allegedly purchased AI-generated pornography from other internet personalities. 

Brandon Ewing (screenname Atrioc) admitted that he paid for AI-generated material “deepfake porn” Several female streamers. 

As The Daily Wire stated previously reportedThe non-consensual nature of AI software is only one of the many controversies. This technology can also be used to copy assignments, pass medical and law school exams, and generate voice clips featuring celebrities saying offensive statements, just to name a few.