Will Smith faces backlash over alleged use of AI-generated crowds in concert videos

It now seems that the 56-year-old "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" star's team has used the same tech to soup up concert footage from his comeback tour — and it strongly appears that the purpose was to grossly exaggerate the crowd for his millions-strong online audience.

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.

But something is amiss.

The problem, as online observers quickly pointed out, is that many segments of the video are clearly either entirely AI-generated or at least cleverly altered using the tech.

Hawk-eyed fans noticed that the footage from the clip appeared to be digitally generated, pointing to glitches and the repeated, uniform motion of fans in the background. 

The claims have fueled speculation Smith’s comeback tour may not be attracting the kind of organic support he’d hoped for.

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.

One shot, which showed a fan holding up a sign saying "'You Can Make It' helped me survive cancer. Thx Will", was particularly concerning - 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.

Elsewhere in the video, a sign saying "Lov U Fresh Prince" later morphs into what looks like "Lov U Fr6sh Crince."

"Okay, 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.”

Yet another YouTube commenter responded, "I like to pause this video and see your crowd close up, too. There are lots of extra digits in this crowd."

And another said, "This is offensive to old people without their glasses on. You know they believed this was the realest crowd ever."

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.

To further complicate matters, a rise in engagement-farming accounts has flooded the web with fake, attention-grabbing content, also known as AI slop.

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” each winning a Grammy, which turned 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 the few rappers who could dominate both the charts and Hollywood box office.

His latest foray into music comes amid a broader attempt to rebuild his public image following the 2022 Academy Awards, when he slapped comedian Chris Rock onstage in response to 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.