Virtual or frozen stars, deepfakes… What AI is doing to celebrity
Interview by Remi Noyon
Published on
Scarlett Johansson during the presentation of her film "Eleanor the Great" on May 21, 2025, at the Cannes Film Festival. The American actress and director calls for better oversight of AI. VALERY HACHE/AFP
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Interview: Sacha Lebrun is preparing a thesis on the "construction and deconstruction of celebrities" in the era of artificial intelligence. As the means of generating images and videos increase tenfold, she wonders what will become of notoriety.
Not a week goes by without a star announcing that their identity has been stolen. New generative artificial intelligence (AI) produces content that is increasingly indistinguishable from "real" productions, and celebrities may fear that one day their image will completely escape them. Research is only just beginning to unravel what could be a radical shift in how we think about stardom. Sacha Lebrun is working on this topic as part of a thesis currently being prepared at the University of Lille.
The advances in AI for video and images are spectacular. How are these tools disrupting the celebrity world?Sacha Lebrun The media are mostly talking about the most malicious cases of "deepfakes," pornographic hijackings , hoaxes that seek to disrupt an election, and identity theft, for example with the case of fake advertisements using the image of actor Tom Hanks. But there is a con…
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