MAN AND ROBOTS: A weekly column from MARS Magazine on AI, Hollywood, and the future of work. 

🤖 AI Resurrects Val Kilmer One Year After Death

1. One of the sacred lines drawn between human actors and AI-generated avatars is being crossed, and it’s in the name of the late Val Kilmer (Heat, Batman Forever, Top Gun). Independent film As Deep As the Grave, directed by Coerte Voorhees, will feature an AI-generated version of Kilmer in one of the key roles. Kilmer, who died of throat cancer in April 2025, had been cast to work on the film years ago, but his medical issues hindered his involvement. Now Kilmer’s estate and family have authorized the production to use an AI-generated image and voice depicting the actor in various stages, young to old, during the film’s plot. “He always looked at emerging technologies with optimism as a tool to expand the possibilities of storytelling,” Mercedes Kilmer, Val Kilmer’s daughter, told Variety. “This spirit is something that we are all honoring within this specific film, of which he was an integral part.”

Kilmer’s AI Stance: Prior to his death, Kilmer worked with AI audio startup Sonantic to help him deliver his lines in 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick. The producers are paying Kilmer’s estate for for the use of his likeness, and claim they are following SAG guidelines [PDF], but there will surely be some outrage regarding this AI version of Kilmer just one year after his passing.

Keep Watch: Sonantic was acquired by Spotify for $93 million in 2022, so keep an eye out for Spotify as an AI in Hollywood collaborator.

🔈 BMG Music vs. Anthropic

2. Earlier this week, music publisher BMG filed a lawsuit against Anthropic, the maker of the Claude chatbot, one of the chief competitors to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. “Anthropic made unauthorized copies of BMG’s works via BitTorrent, both by downloading and uploading BMG-owned works,” reads the lawsuit [PDF]. “As revealed in 2025 in another lawsuit against Anthropic, Anthropic downloaded, without the permission of copyright owners, millions of copies of copyrighted books via torrenting, using the BitTorrent protocol, from illegal pirate library sites.”

The lawsuit also name-checks Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. “Anthropic used torrenting to obtain these files, instead of properly licensing copyrighted works, to avoid a ‘legal/practice/business slog,’ according to Anthropic co-founder and CEO Amodei.” The lawsuit, which is seeking millions in monetary damages, repeatedly mentions Anthropic’s $380 billion valuation.

🏀 WNBA Star Launches AI Clone, Fans Call Foul

3. As of this week, WNBA players have a new contract that will make them richer. But earlier this month, Los Angeles Sparks star Kelsey Plum demonstrated one of her side projects to extend her brand, and perhaps her bank account: an AI clone. The chatbot is called Kelsey’s Twin and can respond to fans in 20 languages. The chatbot was developed by Talk2MeTwins, a company founded by tech veteran Randy Adams, who worked with Steve Jobs at NeXT Computer in the ‘80s, invented Adobe’s PDF, and later co-founded Funny or Die.

Fan Reactions: Plum demonstrated the chatbot on her Instagram account, but even her most ardent fans expressed extremely negative reactions to the AI chatbot. The verdict was clear based on some of the most-liked comments: “Girl we love you, not the AI twin.” “Love KP, Hate AI.” “Love you diva, and can’t blame you for getting your bag. But AI is not it. 😭” “Kels you’re my absolute fav, but this is a big no.”

Despite those harsh reactions, the chatbot is easy to use, very well executed, and answered substantively (and convincingly, as virtual Plum), even when asked about touchy subjects like WNBA pay. Even when queried in Japanese, the chatbot doesn’t miss a step and engages in natural conversation while maintaining Plum’s voice. Nevertheless, it’s the fans who will decide if this AI clone lives, or not.

🏆 Oscars Not So Open To OpenAI’s Sam Altman

4. Although any mentions of AI at the Oscars were muted, save for one major moment on stage, one of the industry’s giants did make an appearance. And at least one Hollywood insider snapped at his presence. During the Vanity Fair Oscars party, upon seeing OpenAI boss Sam Altman at the event, playwright Jeremy O. Harris (Slave Play on Broadway) reportedly accused Altman of being “[Joseph] Goebbels of the Trump administration.”

For those rusty on their history, he was essentially calling Altman a Nazi due to his allegiance with the president, who isn’t widely popular in Hollywood circles (at least not overtly). Later, when asked about the incident, Harris doubled down and told the New York Post, “It was late and I had a few too many martinis so I misspoke when I said Goebbels… I should’ve said Friedrich Flick [the German industrialist and Nazi collaborator].” As for the accusation, it should be noted that Altman is Jewish.

🎬 Hollywood Boss’s AI Promise After Winning Warner Bros.

5. “For more than a century, advances in technology have played an important part in enhancing the creation, production, development, and distribution of compelling audiovisual content. We see great promise in AI. Importantly, however, our view is that human beings are, and should remain, at the heart of the creative process. We view AI as a tool to enhance human creativity—not replace it.”
–Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison on how AI will be used at the studio, in a recently revealed letter to Senator Adam Schiff and Rep. Laura Friedman, sent on Feb. 28.
*Source: Hollywood Reporter

FEAR OF AN AI GAMING INDUSTRY

What These Charts Mean: Although the gaming industry has been hit by an unrelenting wave of layoffs in recent years and months, some of which are thought to be the result of the introduction of AI displacing humans, this doesn’t seem to be the case, yet. So far, based on a survey of 2,300 game industry professionals, AI isn’t being tagged as the source of layoffs. Likewise, although AI use is increasing in the gaming industry, the final product that players engage with contains very little AI-generated content, as professionals seem to be using AI more as efficiency and augmentation tools rather than replacements for production.

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Cover image: Val Kilmer vs. the AMEE robot in “Red Planet” (2000) via Warner Bros.