A bipartisan group of US senators introduced a bill Tuesday that would criminalize the spread of nonconsensual, sexualized images generated by artificial intelligence. The measure comes in direct response to the proliferation of pornographic AI-made images of Taylor Swift on X, formerly Twitter, in recent days.
The measure would allow victims depicted in nude or sexually explicit “digital forgeries” to seek a civil penalty against “individuals who produced or possessed the forgery with intent to distribute it” or anyone who received the material knowing it was not made with consent. Dick Durbin, the US Senate majority whip, and senators Lindsey Graham, Amy Klobuchar and Josh Hawley are behind the bill, known as the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits Act of 2024, or the “Defiance Act.”
Tragic that they were a celebrity that had to go through it for them to do something. But when children or others have it happened to them, they just shrug…
a rich-as-fuck celebrity, at that.
Probably helps that she’s super white too.
This has been happening to AOC constantly since before she was first sworn in and it’s been crickets.
When it happens once to the media’s favourite white billionaire, though? THAT’S when they start to take it seriously.
To be clear, this has been happening to Swift for years. She’s been very public on the problem, and pays IIRC up to a million per year for a firm to get fakes taken down.
“But my narrative!”
Okay, then why is it getting attention now though?
I’m sure it’s gotten a lot easier - I wouldn’t be surprised if there was even a 100x increase after all the AI image generation websites went mainstream.
Yup.
And why are republicans sponsoring a bill protecting a Democrat plant??
What a weird populist law tbh. There’s already an established law framework that covers this: defamation. Not a lawyer but it seems like this should be addressed instead of writing up some new memes.
They’ll use this as an opportunity to sneak in more government spyware/control is my guess.
It’s not defamation. And the new law will likely fail to hold up to 1A scrutiny, if the description of it is accurate (it often is not, for multiple reasons that include these bills generally changing over time). This is more of a free speech issue than photoshopping someone’s head onto someone else’s nude body, because no real person’s head or body is involved, just an inhumanly good artist drawing a nude, and on top of that the law punishes possession, not just creation.
An example question any judge is going to have for the prosecutor if this goes to trial is how the image the law bans is meaningfully different from writing a lurid description of what someone looks like naked without actually knowing. Can you imagine going to jail because you have in your pocket a note someone else wrote and handed you that describes Trump as having a small penis? Or a drawn image of Trump naked? Because that’s what’s being pitched here.
It actually proposes “possession with the intention to distribute” which just show what a meme law this is. How do you determine the intention to distribute for an image?
And I disagree with your take that this can’t be defamation. Quick googling says the general consensus is that this would fall in the defamation family of laws which makes absolute sense since a deepfake is an intentional misrepresentation.
When you find it broken down into individual baggies?
I guess if you have AI generate the senate house speaker fucking her in the ass in an alley full of trash while she holds money bags, it’s then political satire and protected?
Even better: Intentional infliction of emotional distress
There are business interests behind this. There is a push to turn a likeness (and voice, etc.) into an intellectual property. This bill is not about protecting anyone from emotional distress or harm to their reputation. It is about requiring “consent”, which can obviously be acquired with money (and also commercial porn is an explicit exception). This bill would establish this new kind of IP in principle. It’s a baby step but still a step.
You can see in this thread that proposing to expand this to all deepfakes gets a lot of upvotes. Indeed, there are bills out there that go all the way and would even make “piracy” of this IP a federal crime.
Taylor Swift could be out there, making music or having fun, while also making money from “her consent”, IE by licensing her likeness. She could star in movies or makes cameos by deepfaking her on some nobody actor. She could license all sorts of youtube channels. Or how about a webcam chat with Taylor? She could be an avatar for ChatGPT, or she could be deepfaked onto one of those Indian or Kenyan low-wage workers who do tech support now.
We are not quite there yet, technologically, but we will obviously get there soonish. Fakes in the past were just some pervs who were making fan art of a sort. Now the smell of money is in the air.
This seems like the most likely scenario tbh. I’m not sure whether personal likeness IP is a bad thing per se but one thing is sure - it’s not being done to “protect the kids”.
personal likeness IP is a bad thing
It is. It means that famous people (or their heirs, or maybe just the rights-owner) can make even more money from their fame without having to do extra work. That should be opposed out of principle.
The extra money for the licensing fees has to come from somewhere. The only place it can come from is working people.
It would mean more inequality; more entrenchment of the current elite. I see no benefit to society.
When you steal a person’s likeness for profit or defame them, then that’s a CIVIL matter.
This bill will make AI sexualization a CRIMINAL matter.
Where do you see that?
The Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits (DEFIANCE) Act would add a civil right of action for intimate “digital forgeries” depicting an identifiable person without their consent, letting victims collect financial damages from anyone who “knowingly produced or possessed” the image with the intent to spread it.
Here:
A bipartisan group of US senators introduced a bill Tuesday that would criminalize the spread of nonconsensual, sexualized images generated by artificial intelligence.
That doesn’t seem to be correct. More like a typo as criminalize =/= criminal law.
Not a lawyer but it seems like this should be addressed instead of writing up some new memes.
Always interesting to see people who even admit that they don’t know, but they still have a rather strong opinion.
So only lawyers can have an opinion on law and be allowed public discourse? Lol
Nobody’s saying you should be barred from participating, you just rightfully look like an idiot while you do it.
Obviously not. Everyone is allowed to voice their opinion and has to accept that other people might find his opinion stupid and tell them so.
My point is more, that you seem on one hand to realize that it’s a complex matter and you lack the expert knowledge (I’m not a lawyer), but on other hand still feel the need to express your opinion. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. It’s extremely common. Just something I have fun pointing out.
How interesting that someone chose to comment, here of all places, the comment section.
And I have chosen to comment on that comment, go figure.
When that opinion is about what a Law does or does not cover? Yes, only a Lawyer’s opinion should be involved. What a Law should/n’t cover or how it should/n’t work? Layperson’s opinion is important.
Hi, lawyer here.
Everyone’s opinion about the law matters, including what it covers, whether it’s vague, whether it applies, etc. This is Lemmy–not court. We’re in the town square here. Drinking yourself through three years of law school doesn’t imbue you with magical abilities to interpret laws as though they were religious texts. It’s just an education–not a miracle. If lawyers always knew what the law meant and laypeople always didn’t, no one would be fretting over hotly anticipated SCOTUS opinions, because everyone would already know the outcome.
But wouldn’t you know it, reasonable people sometimes disagree, and among those reasonable people, quite often, are non-lawyers.
As it turns out, non-lawyers often have an outsized influence on the law. Did you know that Donald Trump has never been to law school? Unbelievable, right? But hard to fathom though it may be, the big orange idiot hasn’t sat in on a single hour of L1 Torts. In fact he may have never even have seen the inside of a law library. Yet his opinion about the law has a tremendous impact, bigger even than Dr. Moose’s, because checking the “went to law school” box really doesn’t mean a hell of a lot outside of very limited situations.
Personally, I’m much more interested in Dr. Moose’s opinion on this law than I am Rudy Giuliani’s, or even Clarence Thomas’s (and both those guys went to law school), and it’s no bother to me that he’s not a lawyer. In fact, it’s probably a mark in his favor.
If you’re not interested in his opinion because he’s not a lawyer, well hey, that’s totally allowed, but you can easily ignore his comments without being pedantic. Or maybe you could just concede that there’s probably a bunch of strong opinions you also hold on subjects on which you’re not an expert. In fact, the whole lot of omg-not-a-lawyer! non-lawyers pitching little fits in this comment thread probably have strong feelings about war even though many of them have probably never put on a uniform. They might have strong feelings about healthcare despite never having darkened the door of a medical school. Shit, we might all even have strong feelings about politics despite never having gotten a single vote in a single election, ever. Can you believe it?!
Yeah. It’s just an opinion. If you’re gatekeeping ‘having an unqualified opinion’ you should probably just lock yourself in your house and bar the windows, 'cause it’s gonna be an uphill battle for you.
My dear self declared Law involved personage. Nope. It matters not one whit what the layperson’s opinion about what a Law covers or not as the sole arbiters are the Judiciary. Any layperson’s opinion involved is a matter of “should” or "shouldn’t. They have no say in the final passed Law, only the Courts do. To claim otherwise is to pretend “sovereign citizen” is an actual thing.
But the reality wasn’t important to you. Was it, law boi.
Aww. You sound mad. Don’t be mad. Sorry if I got under your skin. Have a Coke and a smile.
A: high sugar drinks are a leading cause of diabetes and should be avoided. I recommend rum instead.
B: don’t make me angry, you won’t like me when I’m, angry.
C: you are not the boss of me.
Everyone’s opinion about the law matters,
Hard disagree, only opinion of people who actually read the law - matter on the topic. Everything else just creates more confusion. We are on the internet most people never bother to go and actually read what they are talking about - and that includes me.
I know, Congress should be ashamed of themselves. We would be hard pressed to find a group that had a worse understanding of technology
Congress is a really low bar, we should try to be at least better than that.
The 1% only look out for the 1%, remember that.
I believe libel laws already exist, but when you’re in Congress you must make laws in a reactionary way otherwise considered thought and reason might begin to permeate the law. We wouldn’t want that.
individuals who produced or possessed the forgery with intent to distribute it
this is going to be a wild ride.
there’s a scenario where the creator is not the leaker but angry people with forks won’t even care of the distinction.
Wanna get someone arrested? Send them an email of a deepfake.
Hot take, but I feel like this is entirely the wrong direction to take. I feel like this will go badly in one of many ways if passed, and I feel like leaning into this would lead to a better world
Women, especially teachers, lose their jobs because their nudes leaked. This technology is in the wild, it can’t be put back in the box. It can be done at home by a technically gifted teenager with a gaming computer. While this is certainly true, I don’t think the common person will understand this until it’s everywhere.
Yeah, I get that it must feel horribly violating, but imagine the world where we go the other direction - where nude pictures have no power, because anyone could have whipped them up.
Where the response to seeing them is anger or disgust, not fear
But my biggest concern is the fact that most technical people don’t understand generative AI… There’s no way in hell Congress grasps the concept. I’m scared to read the full wording of this bill
I agree. There should be good laws already in place for this. Defamation should do it.
A “technically gifted teenager” is someone with an attention span longer than 5 minutes and a computer with a decent GPU. While definitely a scarce resource, not super scarce.
Running stable diffusion locally is getting easier and easier. Took me about 15 mins last time. I just followed the readme. It won’t be long until it’s just a one-click setup and everyone can do it.
Removed by mod
Those might be the least inspired deepfakes ive ever seen
Yeah these are so boring that for fun I’m going to immediately assume this is some sort of conspiracy to control AI
False flag fappening
Those were less NSFW than I thought they’d be. Most other AI celebrity stuff I’ve seen has been way more explicit, and It’s just stuff I’ve come across on lemmy etc.
deleted by creator
THAT’S IT?! this is no worse than if an artist drew lewd pictures of someone.
I just read those articles and I can confirm those photos were not photoshopped and are indeed deep fakes. Nothing really groundbreaking or earthshattering though.
Why just nonconsensual sexual deep fakes? How about nonconsensual deep fakes of anything ?
there is a place for deep fakes in satire. (albeit, they should be known as such,)
I agree with the right to satire, but probably not as a deep fake. Comics, skits, etc., sure. Deep fakes are too convincing for an alarming number of folks.
so how do you feel about skilled impersonators?
what if they’re convincing? or are we going to allow just the shitty ones? or only if they offend the subject?
what you’re proposing is a very slippery slope.
I think the “too convincing skilled impersonator” problem is covered by defamation laws.
Nope. Defamation requires some malicious intent to be illegal. It also requires more or less blatant lies to be maintained.
Particularly since most satire and most impersonators both go to reasonable lengths to ensure that there’s is minimal confusion as to reality,
I’m so glad someone posted a link to Sassy Justice. I thought it was a hilarious little experiment from the South Park guys
An alarming number of folks think the world is flat and the moon is made of cheese. We need a better standard than that.
We need better education.
Everybody knows the moons made of cheese.
Nah, we went and checked whether it was. After we found out it wasn’t, we haven’t gone back.
The folks who think it’s made of cheese also think we faked the moon landing.
Which raises a question… Could someone press for moon landing proof to be suppressed on the grounds that they believe it is a deep fake? I guess that depends on how sexy you find moon cheese.
Alternate headline: Legislators Vow To Put Genie Back In Bottle
So what happens if a person allows their likeness to be 3d modeled and textured for something like a video game, and that 3d model is used to create explicit images. Is that not a problem (or maybe a different kind of problem) because it’s not a deepfake and instead a use of a digital asset?
Technically the terms of use of a persons likeness would be defined in a contract in the case of a product, but since unauthorized use is already not a legal or protected activity in any way then I believe the bill’s intention is to add potentially fines or prison time to offenders on top of opening them up to legal liability.
If the studio had an actor’s written consent then it would be left up to the courts as a civil matter, only.
Copying the asset out of the game file might be a copyright violation but you’re usually allowed to make private copies. IDK to what a degree copyright extends to images made with such an asset. (Funny story. The WWE released a video game with likenesses of their wrestlers (performers? actors? artists? IDK). A tattooist sued because that showed a design of theirs on the skin of a wrestler and won. So much for “my body belongs to me”.)
As far as this bill is concerned. This bill defines anything as a"digital forgery" that is made with “technological means […] to appear to a reasonable person to be indistinguishable from an authentic visual depiction of the individual". IDK how good the reasonable person is at spotting CGI. Quick google says that the average juror is about 50 years old. Make of that what you will.
So they can still make them the old school way using Photoshop?
This is exactly what has me irritated about this whole nonsense… People have been doing that since Photoshop existed, but big scary AI is in the news now so we are going to attack it full force because people are using it in the way they’ve used everything that has similar capabilities…
Still no action on our actual issues though, just some performative bullshit to assist the truly needy of our society, billionaires…
That’s still a digital forgery.
OP knows this. You missed OP’s point.
Only if they do it badly. The bill defines anything as a “digital forgery” that is made with “technological means”:
to appear to a reasonable person to be indistinguishable from an authentic visual depiction of the individual
Unless I am missing something the deep fakes of Taylor Swift wouldn’t actually be covered then 😄
So, oil painting it is.
Well then the headline/title is terrible because it specifies AI.
It’s already impossible to stop.
Also, doing something ONLY when a billionaire complains, is a very bad look.
This appears to be the bill: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24397944-defiance-act
For reference, this is the section getting altered: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/6851
This looks to be an absolute shitshow. I fear it’ll be made even worse before it passes. Maybe they’ll curtail the abuse potential. Then again, maybe not. It may be seen as hurting the right people.
Only sexual ones? not political ones? rigged.
They’re pretty convincing at first glance, but if you know what to look for it’s easy to tell… Kind of like Photoshop
Yeah, the one with Oscar the grouch had me wondering if they did it behind the scenes of sesame Street. I was convinced! /s ^.~
