Will Smith

Will Smith (born 1968) is one of the most commercially successful entertainers of his generation — a hip-hop pioneer as the Fresh Prince, the star of blockbusters from Independence Day to Men in Black, and the Academy Award winner for King Richard. His relationship with AI has been playful and hands-on rather than fearful.

A cavalier embrace

In 2023, an AI-generated clip of “Will Smith eating spaghetti” became a running benchmark for how bad — then how good — text-to-video models were. Smith joined the joke himself in early 2024, posting a parody video of him slurping spaghetti with the caption “This is getting out of hand!” Then in 2025 he went further, releasing tour-promo videos in which generative AI was used to animate and embellish crowd and fan moments. Viewers spotted warped faces and extra fingers and accused him of fabricating an adoring audience.

Rather than apologise, Smith leaned in — captioning one clip “Crowd was poppin’ tonite!!” and answering the backlash with a follow-up AI video that swapped the fans for fist-pumping cats. His conduct places him firmly on the pro side: he treats generative AI as an ordinary creative toy, shrugging off authenticity concerns that many of his peers in SAG-AFTRA have fought hard to codify into contracts.

That nonchalance is exactly what unsettles critics. A megastar casually blurring the line between real and synthetic crowds — with no disclosure of how the footage was made — is, for many, a preview of the trust problems AI brings to media. Smith has offered no manifesto either way; his stance is written in what he ships.