Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., recently scored a major win with OpenAI, pushing the platform to halt the misuse of her father’s image.
During a recent appearance on the “NXT Chapter” podcast hosted by T.D. Jakes, the 62-year-old lawyer opened up about the battle and how she used her influence to pressure the company to act.
When the conversation turned to non-violent tactics and the power of influence to create change, King pointed to her own experience as an example, recalling how altered AI images of her father began circulating online.
“I just had a situation with OpenAI… My father’s image was misused,” she said in a clip from the episode.
“And OpenAI didn’t necessarily do it, but they didn’t also think about the guardrails that were needed in advance,” she continued. “So, when me and John Hope Bryant were talking about this, I said, ‘Hey this Sam [Altman], let’s just reach out.’ People on social media wanted me to speak out, [and] in that instance I needed to use my influence inside, which I did, and it made a tremendous difference and helped set the stage for other historic figures and how that’s used.”
In October, after multiple users used OpenAI’s Sora app to create digitally altered videos of the late civil rights leader, including one of him stealing from a grocery store, the platform announced it would halt the creation of AI videos featuring King and other historical figures, leaving the depictions of their likeness up to the discretion of families and estates to have removed.
Days before the move, King made headlines after leaving a comment on a post about Zelda Williams, daughter of the late actor and comedian Robin Williams, urging the public to stop sending her digitally altered videos of her father.
“I concur concerning my father. Please stop,” King wrote in a post on X at the time, sharing an article about Zelda’s comments.
Reflecting on the moment with Jakes, King said she hoped the situation would serve as a reminder of another powerful way people can use their influence to create the change they want to see.
“I want people to understand that there is power in your influence,” she continued. “Look, I’m for marching, I’m for demonstrating, but I think we missed a very important aspect of the movement that people don’t know about. That’s why we do the work we do at the King Center, teaching people about Kingian non-violence… Sometimes we can call people behind the scenes, even if people have to be in the streets.”
