NEED TO KNOW
This is a story all about how Will Smith‘s AI social media gaffe got flipped, turned upside down.
Smith, 56, caught flak from fans after he shared a video to Instagram on Aug. 12 that featured an AI-generated crowd cheering him on during a performance, seemingly on his European tour.
Shortly after, the post was mocked by Green Day — and now, Smith has responded with a cheeky video letting fans know he’s in on the joke.
The Oscar winner poked fun at the situation with a new performance video shared to Instagram on Aug. 29 — one that featured a crowd made entirely of AI-generated cats.
“Crowd was poppin’ tonite!!” he captioned the video, which featured him performing to the feline fans.
One fan commented that they “love the way Will handles these haters,” while others, like Questlove, commented, “That scared me.”
The post came one day after Green Day seemed to reference the situation with a video of their fans rocking out to a performance of their 1994 song “Basket Case.”
“Don’t need A.I. for our crowds 😜,” the rockers captioned their post.
Smith had fans scratching their heads after his Aug. 12 video, which featured him performing his new song “You Can Make It” and even walking along the barricade, touching hands with fans as he sang.
“My favorite part of tour is seeing you all up close. Thank you for seeing me too ❤️,” he captioned the post.
Dozens of people were shown in the crowd, and many held signs that said things like, “‘You Can Make It’ helped me survive cancer. Thx Will.”
But a closer look revealed some things were off; one fan had feet for hands, while another’s sign — which read “Lov U Fresh Prince” — had a 6 where there should’ve been an E.
An actress named Heather-Ashley Boyer even commented that her face and body had been used in the clip, despite the fact that she had not seen Smith in concert.
Gilbert Flores/Billboard via Getty
“Looks like it was scraped from a photo I was tagged in on Instagram. The guy next to me is totally fake though but the salmon shorts are similar to the guy with me in the real photo,” she commented.
Smith has spent his summer on tour in Europe, promoting his latest album Based on a True Story, which came out in March and marked his first album in 20 years. He’ll wrap things up in Paris on Tuesday, Sept. 2.
This is not the first time the star has made headlines for something AI-related. In 2023, an AI-generated video of a distorted Smith eating spaghetti went viral. It’s since been dubbed the “Will Smith Eating Spaghetti” test, which Forbes has called “something of a Turing Test for video generators, a baseline for testing how powerful AI models really are.”
