Will Smith's AI-Generated Concert Crowds Spark Controversy and Backlash

Horrifying AI Crowds Apparently Used in Will Smith Concert Video

You can't unsee the mass of AI-generated human carnage cheering on the performer. Commenters are calling out actor/rapper Will Smith for using AI in a concert video. The video, posted to YouTube on Aug. 12, features Smith performing in front of audiences that appear in some shots to be real, and in others to be AI generated given the prevalence of blurry faces, extra fingers and akimbo limbs. One YouTube commenter responded: "I like to pause this video and see your crowd close up too. Lots of extra digits in this crowd." Another said: "This is offensive to old people without their glasses on. You know they believed this was the realest crowd ever." A representative for Smith at his talent agency CAA did not immediately return an email seeking comment. Smith is currently touring through Europe and the concert video, which does not specify a location, appeared to be promo to tee off the new performances. There's no description, but the title is: "My favorite part of tour is seeing you all up close. Thank you for seeing me too ❤️". Smith released a new album, Based on a True Story, earlier this year and it did not garner great reviews.

Will Smith Used AI to Animate Concert Photos With Nightmarish Results

Will Smith is currently playing in the U.K. as part of his 'Based on a True Story' tour. The actor, rapper, and film producer has been sharing snippets of his live performances. However, one recent video showing a series of clips from recent shows had many accusing Smith of AI-generating crowds -- and it does seem like something is off. Fans noticed that many members of the crowd appeared uncanny; waxy skin and morphed features are a telltale sign that AI technology has been used, but what exactly has happened? Multiple outlets have contacted Smith's representatives, but so far Smith has not responded to the allegations. Comments have filled his social media pages, lambasting the performer for using the AI tech. It seems unlikely that Smith and his team would AI-generate fake crowds. After all, all of Smith's legs in the U.K. are sold out. One show held at the Scarborough Open Air Theatre was played in front of more than 6,000 people. Photographer Joshua Scott speculates that Smith's team "took photos from the event and used AI to animate it for the video." That is a good hypothesis. Or similarly, the team took video footage from the event and, for whatever reason, decided to upscale it with AI. Although the photo theory seems more plausible. Andy Baio of Waxy points to a photo of the same crowd that Smith posted a few weeks earlier, which looks far more normal. The photo was taken at the Paléo Festival Nyon in Switzerland and it seems like Smith's team ran the photo through an image-to-video AI model, hence why many of the faces look unnatural. Nevertheless, the ethics of taking a photo and turning it into an AI video blurs the lines between what is real and what is not. Is an AI video based on a real photo still a legitimate documentation of the event? The video looks similar to the nightmarish faces that were seen on Netflix after the streamer upscaled old TV shows with AI technology. Not only does it distort faces, but it also garbles text. Smith has had a bad last decade. Once arguably Hollywood's biggest star, a series of scandals has damaged his reputation -- perhaps none more notorious than the infamous slap attack on Chris Rock at the 2022 Academy Awards.

Will Smith tour video appears to use fake AI crowd, viewers say

He's not eating spaghetti, but there seems to be some AI slop in a YouTube video shared by Will Smith. Commenters noticed telltale signs of generative AI in a video on the Fresh Prince's official YouTube channel promoting his tour. The video, which appears to be live footage of Smith performing his new song "You Can Make It," shows fans with distorted faces, hands, and other possible evidence that the crowds were AI-generated. People did not hold back on the presumed use of generative AI to create big crowds and emotional fans. "Ok, this guy definitely has a humiliation fetish," a user commented. "No other explanation for releasing a crowd of AI abominations holding up misspelled signs about how he saved their lives." One shot showed a fan holding up a sign saying "'You Can Make It' helped me survive cancer. Thx Will." The fan has that cartoony frown and shiny smooth skin common in AI-generated videos, and the hand of the person in front of him morphs into his hand holding up the sign, with a seemingly disembodied hand behind theirs. "Imagine being this rich and famous and having to use AI footage of crowds and bot comments on your video," commented another user. "Tragic, man. You used to be cool." Elsewhere in the video, a sign saying "Lov U Fresh Prince" later morphs into what looks like "Lov U Fr6sh Crince." It's unclear whether the footage is AI-generated. Mashable reached out to YouTube and a rep for Smith to verify these claims. Regardless, many viewers are convinced it's AI. The advancement of AI video generators like Google's Veo 3 and upstarts like Kling, Pika, and Luma make it harder and harder to tell the difference between what's real and AI-generated. That's created an effect online where people question the validity of videos and images. To complicate things, a rise in engagement-farming accounts has flooded the web with fake, attention-grabbing content, also known as AI slop. Whether or not it's explicitly AI, the mainstream adoption of AI-generated videos conjures strong reactions from people. Backlash to AI-generated videos isn't always about fans feeling deceived. It's also a question of taste. At a recent concert, rock icon Rod Stewart played an AI-generated video of the late Ozzy Osbourne in heaven with other dead artists like Tupac and Bob Marley, with one user calling it "a new low." Journalist Jim Acosta recently "interviewed" an AI version of a teenager killed in the Parkland Shooting, and was accused of crossing an ethical line and exploiting the victim's family. Smith's tour continues in the UK for the next few nights, and then on to Paris. Should we expect to see more questionable signs and morphed body parts?

Will Smith's self-inflicted PR nightmare won't end after appearing to use AI-generated crowds to promote his rap comeback

Will Smith's bid to relaunch his rap career has been overshadowed by a new controversy: accusations the actor and musician used artificial intelligence to fabricate cheering crowds in promotional videos. Clips posted to Smith's official YouTube channel this month showed dense audiences chanting his name and waving their hands in unison during performances. But some viewers and social-media users quickly suggested the footage appeared digitally generated, pointing to glitches and the repeated, uniform motions of fans in the background. The claims have fueled speculation Smith's comeback tour may not be attracting the kind of organic support he hoped for. "Ok, this guy definitely has a humiliation fetish," one commenter wrote on his YouTube channel. "No other explanation for releasing a crowd of AI abominations holding up misspelled signs about how he saved their lives." "Imagine being this rich and famous and having to use AI footage of crowds and bot comments on your video," another commenter wrote. "Tragic, man. You used to be cool." Representatives for Smith have not publicly addressed the criticism. The videos, however, remain online. The alleged use of AI-generated crowds comes at a delicate moment for Smith, 56, who first broke into music in the mid-1980s as part of the hip-hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. The group's clean, narrative-driven style helped bring rap into the mainstream, with hits like "Parents Just Don't Understand" and "Summertime" winning a Grammy, which made Smith into one of the most recognizable rap voices of his generation. After transitioning to acting, Smith's film career eclipsed his music output, though he continued to release solo albums in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Tracks such as "Gettin' Jiggy wit It" and "Miami" cemented his crossover status as one of few rappers who could dominate both the charts and Hollywood box offices. But he has not released a major rap project in more than a decade. His latest foray into music comes amid a broader attempt to rebuild his public image following the 2022 Academy Awards, when he struck comedian Chris Rock on stage after a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. The incident led to a 10-year ban from attending the Oscars and triggered a wave of backlash that sharply curtailed new opportunities. While Smith has since returned to acting -- most recently with the release of Bad Boys: Ride or Die -- the shadow of the altercation continues to linger. While it makes sense Smith might return to his rap roots to regain control of the narrative surrounding his career, the AI controversy risks undermining that effort. The use of synthetic audiences suggests a lack of confidence in his own drawing power, and this might hurt his attempt to come across as authentic.

Will Smith Used AI to Generate Fans Singing Along to His Horrible New Music and the Result Is Unintentionally Hilarious

It now seems that the 56-year-old "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" star's team has used the tech to soup up concert footage from his would-be comeback tour -- and it strongly appears that the purpose was to make an underwhelming crowd look like they're still filled with love for Smith's much-lampooned career trajectory. Posted recently on YouTube and Instagram, the minute-long video from Smith's "Based on a True Story" tour shows the "Wild Wild West" actor performing onstage for what in the video looks at first glance like a packed crowd of adoring fans, many of whom are experiencing emotional outbursts and holding signs about how impactful he's been in their lives. The problem, as online observers quickly pointed out, is that many segments of the video are clearly either AI-generated entirely, or at least severely altered using the tech. Don't believe us? Just look at this gentleman who appears partway through, his passion for Will Smith expressed through an inverted rictus never before seen on a living human face as he holds aloft a sign saying that Smith's mostly forgotten 2024 single "You Can Make It" helped him "survive cancer." For extra nightmare fuel, check out some of those visages in the background -- and oh yeah, why is another person's hand morphing into the man's grasp on his sign? Not enough evidence for you? Just take a look -- no, really look -- at this ghoulish crowd scene, where tormented-looking faces melt together under a banner, held aloft by no one in particular, that reads "From West Philly to West Swiggy, we [heart] you Will" in AI-garbled lettering with strange markings beside it. Scrambling the situation further, the video seems to be an uncanny mixture of real footage of Smith and distant crowd scenes, mixed with closeups of rapturous fans that are either completely fake or edited into unintentionally hilarious caricature. (It's also worth noting that the crowd in the video is almost entirely white, for some reason.) On social, reactions were brutal. "Just a mess of blurry half-faces, hands with 7 fingers, phones that have been crossed with old fashioned cameras, foreheads disappearing into nowhere etc," one viewer wrote. "There's not a trace of human in that shot." Interestingly, the video isn't labeled on either YouTube or Instagram as containing AI-generated content, which YouTube has tacitly required for nearly 18 months and Meta, the owner of Instagram, has required for nearly as long. And as a reality check, compare the Beatlemania-esque euphoria of the concertgoers in the video with real footage from the tour, which shows an modestly-sized crowd swaying lightly while holding up smartphones to record the spectacle of an AARP-aged Smith bopping around onstage through numerous costume changes. (Also tellingly, we were unable to locate a video of the tour on YouTube featuring more than 500 views.) A user who claimed to have attended the "I, Robot" actor's concert in Frankfurt, Germany earlier this summer attested that their crowd experience differed majorly from what was shown in Smith's video. "I was at his show in Frankfurt, and it was really sad. The hall was only a little more than half full, and the expensive seats were about 20 percent sold out," they wrote. "His social media posts after the concert made it look like the venue was packed. The show was really bad; the best crowd reaction was when they played videos of the Carlton dance and his dancers breakdancing to 90s hip-hop songs (not his)." Add it all up, it seems pretty straightforward what happened: the aging rapper or his team were unhappy with the underwhelming concert footage they captured in reality, so they decided to "enhance" it using AI tech -- and ended up creating an accidental parody in which fans writhe in ecstasy to a guy who's just not bringing in rabid throngs anymore. Or heck, maybe he'll come out and say he was in on the joke. Smith's team doesn't seem to have provided a response to any publication yet, but we've contacted his representation with questions. We'll update if we hear back.

Will Smith accused of using AI for 'embarrassing' tour video

Many are convinced that Will Smith and his team have doctored a video promoting the rapper-actor's ongoing tour so that the crowds appear larger. It's not a great look, especially with the existential threat AI poses for musicians... Between the Oscars slap heard around the world, falling off the Hollywood radar as a result and some relationship woes, it's fair to say that it's been a rough few years for Will Smith and his cultural relevancy. Things didn't look up this year, with the March release of his first studio album in 20 years, 'Based On A True Story'. It failed to chart in any major territory - a first for Smith - and as for the songs themselves, their swagger was unconvincing and the lyrical platitudes came off a self-indulgent. Don't believe us? It's currently the worst reviewed album of the year on AOTY, ranking lower than Maroon 5's latest and the godawful Drake and PartyNextDoor collab album '$ome $sexy $ongs 4 U'. Ooof. It seems like 2025 just isn't the rapper-actor's year, as the No Longer Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is now at the centre of much online ridicule over some AI generated images of his ongoing tour. Smith kicked off the UK leg in Scarborough on Sunday and ahead of the concerts, a video was shared from his official YouTube channel and on Instagram, titled: "My favourite part of tour is seeing you all up close. Thank you for seeing me too." The clip has been gaining attention for all the wrong reasons, as many are claiming it makes heavy use of AI - specifically faked footage of his fans and their homemade signs. Faces appear blurred or melting. Body parts are impossibly distorted. Some hands have six fingers. No judgement or shade to anyone with polydactyly, but it all looks a bit weird. Check out some of the images of what many have branded "fake AI crowds": Focus on that left corner... Everywhere really. Unsettling, right? The internet is having a field day over it, with Smith being accused of falsifying the crowds and by extension the hype surrounding his comeback tour. "Imagine being this rich and famous and having to use AI footage of crowds... Tragic, man," commented someone online, while another wrote below his video: "So not only is this an abomination to look at because it's low quality phone footage that's been heavily AI upscaled, but there's also in-between scenes that are clearly AI-generated." "What kind of sheeple do you think we are bro?" added another. "You can't be this ignorant bruh c'mon it's embarrassing." It's not a great look, especially because it comes at a time when the use of AI is incredibly controversial in the music industry. A recent study estimated that without intervention from policymakers, people working in music are likely to lose more than 20 per cent of their income to AI over the next four years. Deezer also reported that roughly 10,000 AI-generated tracks are submitted to the platform on a daily basis, while AI developers in the music industry are set to gain €4bn - up from €0.1bn in 2023. These figures come from the first global economic study examining the impact of AI on human creativity, courtesy of the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC). Many artists are struggling to find fair remuneration in this new digital ecosystem, and have been speaking out against the existential threat AI poses. From Nick Cave to Paul McCartney, via Elton John, Radiohead, Dua Lipa, Kate Bush and Robbie Williams - all have called on the UK government to change copyright laws amid the threat of AI. And the less said about ear-assaulting slop like the AI-generated Spotify "Verified Artist" The Velvet Sundown, the better. Will Smith's UK tour continues tonight in Cardiff, before shows in Manchester, London and Wolverhampton. He heads to Paris next month. Tickets are still available - despite the seemingly packed crowds in videos.

Will Smith Accused of Creating an AI Crowd for Tour Video

Footage from Will Smith's comeback Based On A True Story tour has got perceptive online viewers pointing out curious happenings among the crowd. Compiled of clips from his shows on tour, one shot includes fans holding up a sign that reads "We <3 You Willy" but some images of the faces around it are distorted and blurred. Others online have claimed some audience members have been bestowed extra fingers or oddly formed hands. While some have accused the Prince of Bel Air of using artificial intelligence to beef up shots of the crowd, there have been reports of YouTube artificially altering videos uploaded to the platform without the creators' knowledge. In a story published in The Atlantic last week, YouTuber Rhett Shull said that he believes that YouTube is using "AI upscaling" on his videos, which involves dialing up an image's resolution and detail. "I think it's gonna lead people to think that I am using AI to create my videos. Or that it's been deepfaked. Or that I'm cutting corners somehow," he told the publication. "It will inevitably erode viewers' trust in my content." A rep for Smith and a rep for YouTube did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone's requests for comment. The line between reality and illusions have blurred as AI floods the internet, from fake bands to artificially generated songs to bogus photos of music legends -- including a completely imagined capture of Mick Jagger, Elton John, and Rod Stewart harmonizing at Ozzy Osbourne's memorial service. Last month, The AI band The Velvet Sundown went viral and garnered a flurry of media coverage after suddenly appearing on popular Spotify playlists. The band also inspired an apparent hoaxer who said he impersonated the band on X and falsely claimed to be a band spokesperson during interactions with the media, including a phone interview with Rolling Stone. The Velvet Sundown later put out a band bio calling itself "a synthetic music project guided by human creative direction, and composed, voiced, and visualized with the support of artificial intelligence," adding: "This isn't a trick -- it's a mirror. An ongoing artistic provocation designed to challenge the boundaries of authorship, identity, and the future of music itself in the age of AI."

Outrage as Will Smith's tour video shows creepy AI glitches -- extra fingers, blurred faces

Will Smith's recent thank-you video for his UK tour has sparked controversy among fans due to apparent AI glitches. Viewers noticed distorted faces, blurry hands, and extra fingers in the crowd footage, leading to accusations of using AI to enhance the video. Critics have labeled the video "embarrassing," questioning why Smith would use AI instead of authentic concert footage. Fans are upset with Will Smith after they noticed strange AI glitches in a video promoting his latest UK tour. It was supposed to be a heartfelt thank-you video, instead has made people feel uneasy because the faces were distorted, the hands were blurry, and there were even extra fingers in the crowd footage. The claims have spread quickly. Critics called it "embarrassing" and asked why the actor-rapper used AI instead of real concert footage. People say that Will Smith used AI to make his new tour video look better, and fans are not happy about it. The actor and rapper, who is now on the UK leg of his Based on a True Story summer tour, posted the video on his official YouTube channel before his live shows. The video is called, "My favourite part of tour is seeing you all up close. Thank you for seeing me too" was meant to be a nice message to fans. Instead, it made people suspicious when they saw details that made it look like AI had been used. People in the audience had blurry or smudged faces, arms that looked bent, and hands that looked strange. Some people looked like they had six fingers in some shots, as per a report by The Independent. One very obvious moment showed a man's knuckle blending into the sign he had written by hand, and the woman in front of him seemed to be holding his hand in a way that didn't make sense. Another shot shows a man's knuckles blurring together with his sign, which reads: "'You Can Make It' helped me survive cancer." "THX, Will." Besides, the headband of another woman seemed to cross over her wrist, which made people think even more that the video had been altered digitally, as per a report by The Independent. Online, the backlash was quick and harsh. Many people left comments saying the video was a "fake AI crowd" and "embarrassing." Some people made fun of the idea that a global star like Smith, who is very rich and famous, would use fake images instead of real concert footage. Critics said that a lot of the video looked like low-quality recordings that had been blown up a lot with AI tools, which made the results strange and scary. Several people pointed out exact times when people in the crowd had six fingers, smudged eyes, or distorted facial features, which are all signs of AI generation. Others completely ignored the clip, calling it nothing more than a poorly done publicity stunt, as per a report by The Independent. "Hey [Will] these pr stunts are going nowhere," another fan said. "What kind of sheeple do you think we are bro? You can't be this ignorant bruh c'mon it's embarrassing." "Videographers exist, why abandon quality work for this degenerative slop?" critics remarked. One fan retorted: "I don't want to be that guy but: You can see many people in the crowd having six fingers or more, eyes smudged, faces are distorted. Proving that certain (well, almost all clips that show the audience) are AI-generated." "Imagine being rich and famous and having to use AI footage of crowds..." "Tragic, man," one critic stated, as per a report by The Independent. ALSO READ: Kilmar Abrego Garcia's speech before being arrested goes viral - this is what he said Another user wrote, "So not only is this an abomination to look at because it's low quality phone footage that's been heavily AI upscaled, but there's also in-between scenes that are clearly AI-generated," citing timestamps where the alleged inconsistencies occurred. Smith's controversy comes at a time when people are already arguing a lot about AI in the music business. Many artists want stronger protections for their likeness and work, but some performers are being criticized for using AI in ways that aren't always clear, as per a report by The Independent. English rocker Rod Stewart got a lot of hate this month when he showed an AI-generated tribute to the late Ozzy Osbourne at one of his concerts. Many fans called the tribute "disrespectful" because it showed a computer-generated version of Osbourne posing with other dead stars like Tina Turner, Prince, and Bob Marley. ALSO READ: Apple's iPhone 17 & 17 Pro release date schedule heat up -- here's the latest scoop Even with all the talk about AI, Smith's Based on a True Story tour is still going on in the UK. After starting things off in Scarborough, the rapper-actor will perform in Cardiff, Manchester, London, and Wolverhampton. This March, he released his first album in 20 years. What did people see in Will Smith's video? People saw glitches that looked like AI, such as extra fingers, blurry faces, and signs that were hard to read. What tour is Will Smith pushing right now? He is doing the UK part of his summer tour, "Based on a True Story."

Oh dear, Will Smith - this AI mess stinks of desperation

Will Smith has got himself into an embarrassing scrape that's painfully ironic, whilst completely exemplifying the slightly desperate edge he's had since that moment at The Oscars. Of course, it involves AI (as every decent scandal does at the moment), and it is exactly the opposite of what his personal brand needs at the moment. It's his biggest AI mess since that spaghetti video we were traumatised by. The Fresh Prince is currently embarking on his comeback tour, and eagle eyes have spotted a use of generative AI that, frankly, belongs in 2023. The promo videos for the concerts contain footage of fans fawning and crying over his onstage performance, presumably to whip up the feeling that we all missed him very much and are delighted to see him back where he belongs. But unfortunately, those 'fans' have the distinct aroma of being AI generated, six fingers and all. Will Smith's YouTube account posted the video, with the tagline "My favourite part of tour is seeing you all up close". Which, of course, only draws attention to the 'people' in the crowd, the fact they seem not to be real and results in the overtone of desperation. It's a wrong step for someone trying to regain public relevancy and approval (redemption and forgiveness is apparently a big part of his onstage chat, according to sources at the gigs) - and something that could have been easily avoided. Not only do the fans have the wrong number of fingers and hands that morph into objects, but there are also frames in the video where the people seem to have no eyes. There are also weird-looking faces and distorted signs. Some comments across the internet are blaming YouTube for its new AI image upscaler, which is being added to some videos to improve quality by the platform itself. But others assert that this is clearly generative AI and not an upscaler, which would only enhance footage rather than alter it to create extra limbs (etc). If this is true then surely Will Smith has enough concert footage that they could have included a real audience. Or else what were the real fans doing at the concert? Were they not emotional enough? Perhaps they were stood stony-faced the whole way through, and not projecting the image Will Smith's brand apparently needs right now. What is needs are declarations that Will helped them "survive cancer" - and other extreme, emotional sentiments. At the very least, someone on his team should have had the knowledge of AI markers to notice the issue - whether or not the video is gen AI. At this point, I'm starting to feel a bit sorry for Will, someone who used to ooze effortless 'cool'. He clearly doesn't quite know where to go with his brand to raise public opinion. But real people would be a good place to start. Want to try AI of a different quality? Nano Banana is here to disrupt the market.