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Claims that digital clones of actors, including famous Turkish actor Ozcan Deniz, will be used in a new series have ignited controversy in Türkiye’s film and television world. The issue has sparked a broader discussion about artificial intelligence and its role in reshaping the entertainment industry.
Actor Muhammet Uzuner told Türkiye daily that while the world is inevitably moving toward new technologies, the implications must be considered carefully:
“I’m not in favor of a crude rejection or acceptance. If our craft is evolving into something different, we must think deeply about its consequences. What matters is how it’s done and to what extent. AI should be used in a controlled way. If one day there is no need for real actors at all, that would mean both art and society have entered a fragile state.”
Actor Ahmet Yenilmez took a more skeptical view, warning of the industrialization of art:
“When art flows in an industrial manner, the rules of wild imperialism apply. As actors, we would turn into extras. Copyright law in our country is not yet well established. If digital copies enter the scene, the gap will widen dramatically.”
Erim Sisman, director of the much-debated AI-based series Tesseract, argued that the project has been misunderstood:
“People think we created digital clones of actors and produced an entire work by giving commands to a computer. That’s not exactly true. We filmed with our actors in the studio. The only difference was that we designed their digital versions to fit the atmosphere of the production. It’s impossible to make a film or series without actors.”
Sisman also emphasized that AI offers opportunities as well as challenges:
“In the past, we could only see high-quality visual effects in Hollywood. Now we’ve caught up and become pioneers. AI is already being actively used in Türkiye. We now have a technology that can raise the quality of our films and series — and increase production.”
However, the series also features “Laila,” a fully AI-generated “actor.” Sisman claimed that this digital character is not yet at a level that poses a threat to human actors.
As Türkiye’s creative sector increasingly adopts artificial intelligence, experts expect the debate to intensify in the coming months.
2 min read
