THE SENATE UNANIMOUSLY passed a bipartisan bill to provide recourse to victims of porn deepfakes — or sexually-explicit, non-consensual images created with artificial intelligence.
The legislation, called the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits (DEFIANCE) Act — passed in Congress’ upper chamber on Tuesday. The legislation has been led by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), as well as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in the House.
The legislation would amend the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) to allow people to sue those who produce, distribute, or receive the deepfake pornography, if they “knew or recklessly disregarded” the fact that the victim did not consent to those images.
Unanimously
While I think ‘deepfake porn is bad’ is pretty uncontroversial, I’m surprised not one senator decided to vote nay just to spite AOC.
Because the headline is misleading. The bill was written by a bipartisan group of democrats and republicans, including AOC.
It’s weird to call it AOC’s bill in this context.
It would not be nearly the first time that Republicans shot down their own bill for no reason other than some Democrats said it was a good bill.
We all know why.
Clue in the one guy that doesn’t please?
i’m guessing because she’s the only senator with a notable quantity of deepfake porn made of her.
She isnt a senator though, unless I missed something?
Bills start in the House before they are passed to the Senate. My guess would be that she championed it through the House, and then passed it off to the Senators mentioned to continue shepherding the legislation to the President’s desk.
It can go both ways. Some start in the house, some the senate. They need to be approved by both, but the process isn’t unidirectional.
She isn’t one, but she will be. A senator I mean.
Not the only one with a “notable quantity”, but certainly the only one with content which could be regarded as “contextually appropriate”.
If your sexual proclivity errs on the side of old and/or stupid politicians, then I apologise for calling your preferences “contextually inappropriate”
It’s like watching the Teletubbies during an orgy; sure, someone might be into it, but I’m quite sure most people would say the Teletubbies is not something they want to watch while turning your favourite primary school teacher pink.
I get it now, thanks for the explanation!
I dunno, i’ve seen lots of Kamala deepfakes flooding the internet since her run was announced.
VP is functionally essentially a senator with extra privilages
VP is functionally essentially a senator with extra privilages
But seemingly less power and influence somehow
Say that to my petabyte-sized collection of Lindsay Graham tickle porn.
For republicans, aoc is the face of the liberal woke boogeyman. It doesn’t matter what she says or does, it’s automatically terrible. All news media gives her way more attention than is warranted bc they like to capitalize on hype.
I’m guessing “defending nonconsensual porn” seemed like something you wouldn’t want on your record and in attack ads even for the troglodytes.
Once it gets to a vote, yes. The way to kill these things is to bury it in procedure and pretend you’re just doing due diligence. Still pretty amazing that it got this far.
These guys are tripping over each other to gargle the orange balls of a bitch who openly professes lust for his daughter.
I don’t think he puts the fake tan all over. Occasionally, he doesn’t even get to the hair line.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/trump-real-photo-orange-tan-skin.html
I’m surprised from the other side, there’s always people defending deepfake porn on Lemmy
Its a 1st ammendment issue to me.
Things have already been moving towards nobody models. I think this will eventually have the consequence of nobodies becoming the new somebodies as this will result in a lot of very well developed nobodies and move the community into furthering their development instead of the deepfake stuff. You’ll eventually be watching Hollywood quality feature films full of nobodies. There is some malicious potential with deep fakes, but the vast majority are simply people learning the tools. This will alter that learning target and the memes.
You’ll eventually be watching Hollywood quality feature films full of nobodies.
With the content on modern streaming services, I’ve been doing this for a while already.
Oh damn, you should try switching to Dropout.
That’s where the money is, so yes that’s where the majority of work is. But I do think one of the drivers of this is to help protect more local instances; to create consequences for things like fake revenge porn or distributing deepfakes of classmates/teachers in your school, etc.
This might make the path to generating slightly harder, but it won’t do anything to stop an intelligent person. I haven’t seen a ton of info from people talking about this stuff, but exploring on my own, especially with Stable Diffusion 3, diffusion models are very different than LLM’s. The filtering for safety type alignment is happening external to the model using CLIP, and in the case of SD3, 2× CLIP models and a T5xxl LLM model. The alignment filters are done with these and some trickery. Screwing with these can enable all kinds of capabilities. It is just hard to understand the effect of some tricks, like SD3 swaps an entire layer in the T5 manually. When these mechanisms are defeated, models can generate freely, which essentially means everything is a deepfake. This is open source. So it can never be extinguished. There was a concerted effort to remove the rogue 4chanGPT. It does not have the ChatGPT derived alignment like all other models. The 4chanGPT is still readily available if you know where to look.
This bill just raises the barrier of entry and makes such content less familiar and more powerful in the end. In reality, we would be socially stigmatizing while accepting the new reality IMO. This is like an weapons arms race. You may not like that the enemy created cannons, but banning the casting of cannons within your realm will do nothing to help you in the end. Everyone in the realm may understandably hate cannons, but you really need everyone familiar with casting, making the and everyone in your realm to learn how to deal with them and what to expect. The last thing you need is a lot of ignorant people on a battlefield bunching up together because they do not understand their opponents.
These tools are also weapons. Everyone needs to understand what is truly possible, regardless of how unpleasant that may seem. They can not have a healthy skepticism without familiarity. If they do not have familiarity, they will bunch up on a battlefield facing cannons loaded with grapeshot.
So I haven’t dug deeply into the actual legislation, so someone correct me if I’m misinformed… but my understanding is that this isn’t necessarily trying to raise the bar for using the technology as much as much as trying to make clearer legal guidelines for victims to have legal recourse. If we were to relate it to other weapons, it’s like creating the law “it’s illegal to shoot someone with a gun”.
I have not dug deeply either, but have noticed that Civitai has shifted their wording and hosting in ways that indicated a change was coming. In practice, the changes will come from the model hosting sites for open source tools limiting their liability and not hosting content related to real humans.
My main concern is the stupid public reacting to some right wing fake and lacking appropriate skepticism. Like expecting detection tools to be magical and understanding the full spectrum of possibilities.
Of course, eventually somebody will look exactly like the nobody, so the owners of the nobody will sue that somebody to block them from pretending to be that nobody in videos.
Erase yo face!
Who’s on first?
They’ll base their nobody on dead people
Finally, I can indulge my Boudica X Lincoln fantasies!
I see it eventually happening in porn, but it isn’t happening in major motion pictures any time too soon. People won’t follow and actively go see a cgi actor in a movie like they would a real one. Hollywood pays big money for A list stars because those people get asses in seats. That, along with tech not being there quite yet, and Hollywood locked under sag contract to only do certain things with AI all adds up to nobody’s being a ways off.
I also remember years ago reading scare headlines about how the CG in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was so realistic that it would be the end of Hollywood actors, they would all be CG.
So I’ll take that claim with a huge grain of salt.
To be fair, The Spirits Within was pretty amazing especially considering when it was made. I briefly had the same thought while I was still in awe of the realism, so I can definitely understand why people would believe those headlines.
I can imagine a scenario where a real voice actor is paired with a particular model and used in multiple films/roles. That’s not that dissimilar to Mickey Mouse or any other famous animated character.
The idea that AICG actors will completely replace live actors is clearly ridiculous, but the future definitely has room for fully visually- and vocally-AICG personalities as film “stars” alongside real people.
What I am saying is that I think we are a much longer way away from believable photrealistic CG actors than you think. As far as I know, microexpressions have not even been considered, let alone figured out. Microexpressions are really important.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microexpression
That’s why I think the uncanny valley problem is a lot harder to overcome than people believe.
You’re missing the point. There may be lots of Nobody models out there that satisfy just about every possible aesthetic or body preference a person could have, and you can use them fairly guilt-free to make content that you want to see. I understand the appeal, and it is far preferable to using real people’s likenesses without their consent.
But that doesn’t scratch the itch people want to scratch. People grew up reading and watching Harry Potter and fantasized about fucking Hermione. They developed a crush on Emma Watson during their formative years, and it never went away completely. People want to see pervy pictures of her, specifically, and AI has given them broad access.
People have crushes, and their crushes have Instagram feeds. Crop out 60-100 good face shots and and a mid-grade gaming PC can churn out a LoRA or TI overnight. Then they’ll be generating the nudes they wish their crushes were texting them.
And some people are just fucked up. They hate women, and they want to exert power over them. Any woman with enough Instagram photos is a potential target, where deepfakes and nudifed photos are trivial to produce, and then attempt to use to humilate or blackmail a woman online.
People are already nudifying picture of kids, and then DMing those kids the photos, blackmailing them for actual nudes, and then escalating from their once they’ve trapped some vulnerable child in an abusive cycle.
There is little to nothing we can do to stop this technology from being available, but we absolutely need to lay the groundwork for holding people responsible, civilly and criminally, for abusing this technology to hurt people.
I don’t feel like arguing, but AI has not enabled people like this. It is simply shown a spotlight on the true spectrum of people.
Personally, I realized what fixation was and what it meant in regards to sexuality at around 12 years old. It is an adolescent behavior. There is nothing wrong with knowing examples of what you find attractive. It is better to understand them, and if the person is mature enough, to break down their fundamental psychology. If you look up scientific definitions of beauty, you will land in the realm of neoteny in humans. Youthful appeal is a current leading hypothesis about how homo sapiens evolved in the first place as part of the explanation for why sexual maturity happens so early compared to cognitive maturity, and why girls mature before boys. There is a lot more underpinning the appeal of what one sees when they are younger. I believe for the vast majority of humans, it is a protection for them to understand these elements of the true human psyche despite the present cultural taboos. If there is a safe outlet, and a person is made fully aware of what they do and do not find attractive, free from any external bias, that knowledge enables them to better understand dangerous situations where they need to be on guard.
My aunt was raped, as was someone I dated. Both were from drunken family in unexpected situations where they made terrible choices. I find it repulsive to think about hurting someone for the pointlessness of sex. It’s a 5 second drug hit in the brain; so the fuck what. There are way more effective drugs, and a fucking hand does a better job 9 times out of 10 if you’re really honest about it. I’m for the cultural shift of normalizing the fact that humans like youthful appeal, not because I want to have kiddie porn, but because I want people to thoroughly understand the taboo is more than just a rule, and if they find something attractive that is dangerous, they should be aware of everything involved. Don’t call them perverted or messed up. They are like someone with an addiction bad for their health like drinking, smoking, or harder drugs. They need to avoid circumstances where those drugs are present. Like if there are a bunch of kids at some house party, I don’t want someone feeling weird and crazy because they see some kid and think they are aesthetically pleasing. I want them to think that is perfectly normal human thought. What is not normal is fucking up that kid’s life by taking actions. They may not ever imagine doing something like that, but get them very drunk, and stumbling into an unexpected circumstance and really bad things happen in real life.
Like, in the bike shops I was a Buyer for, I was often asked why I carried so many low security locks for bikes. It’s simple; the goal is to keep honest people honest; to not give them an unexpected opportunity.
Nothing about this bill or AI is going to enable or change human behavior. The intelligence curve will always have more people at the bottom. They are going to fixate on stupid things. At least celebrities knew they were putting themselves in the public spotlight and at least they have the money to escape the reach of most if the crazies.
If anything, this could be the safe catalyst necessary for English culture to directly address and curb whole kiddie nonsense to a much better degree and resolution that actually impacts behaviors without ostracism and the adolescent mentality of blind repulsion.
I think everything happening as it is presently is the safest option and opportunity. If you take away the celebrity outlet, now the really fucked up psycho starts putting cameras in a temp rental, bathroom toilet, fitting room receptacle, or obsessing over their neighborhood kids. People will always find an outlet. We should be talking to them about their cognitive dissonance and underlying conflict so that they can be helped before they act on many of these behaviors, not because of the appeal of kids, but because of the unconscious counter motivations created by unresolved conflict that manifest as cognitive dissonance. If the person is not a condemned lost cause they are far more likely to learn or seek help.
So to me, this is a disproportionate reaction to something that ultimately has little to no impact. Nothing new has been instantiated; only a spotlight on what was already there. In this instance, we could have used it to grow and mature, but we largely fail to do so. We choose to continue our adolescent rampage and choose to continue with more people getting hurt as a result. Stupid people oversimplify and fail to question their biases in honest depth. I hate to see the effects and damages this blind spot causes to people I love.
Did she use the “it can happen to you” gambit? Because the strongest motivators for politicians are power, wealth, and self preservation.
Strongest? You mean only
Paywall, does it have any shady stuff slipped in like KOSA, SOPA, and the other “protect the children” laws usually have?
You can read the bill directly from here:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/3696/text
It’s actually reasonably short. I’m not seeing anything that doesn’t appear directly related to derpfakes
Is a derpfake when AI makes you look stupid?
It’s when autocorrect makes you look stupid
Nice thanks seems straightforward
The bill: https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/s3696/BILLS-118s3696es.xml
As always, I read the bill expecting to be deeply disappointed; but was pleasantly surprised with this one. It’s not going to solve the issue, but I don’t really know of anything they can do to solve it. My guess is this will mostly be effective at going after large scale abuses (such as websites dedicated to deepfake porn, or general purpose deepfake sites with no safeguards in place).
My first impressions on specific parts of the bill:
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The bill is written as an amendment to the 2022 appropriations act. This isn’t that strange, but I haven’t actually cross-references that, so might be misunderstanding some subtlety.
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The definition of digital forgery is broad in terms of the means. Basically anything done on a computer counts, not just AI. In contrast, it is narrow in the result, requiring that:
when viewed as a whole by a reasonable person, is indistinguishable from an authentic visual depiction of the individual.
There is a lot of objectionable material that is not covered by this. Personally, I would like to see a broader test, but can’t think of any that I would be comfortable with
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The depiction also needs to be relevant to interstate or foreign commerce. There hands are tied by the constitution on this one. Unless Wickard v Fillburn us overturned though, me producing a deepfake for personal use reduces my interstate porn consumption, so it qualifies. By explicitly incorporating the constitutional test, the law will survive any change made to what qualifies as interstate commerce.
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The mens rea required is “person who knows or recklessly disregards that the identifiable individual has not consented to such disclosure” No complaints on this standard.
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This is grounds for civil suits only; nothing criminal. Makes sense, as criminal would normally be a state issue and, as mentioned earlier, this seems mostly targeted at large scale operations, which can be prevented with enough civil litigation.
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Max damage is:
- $150k
- Unless it can be linked to an actual or attempted sexual assult, stalking or harassment, in which case it increases to $250k
- Or you can sue for actual damages (including any profits made as a result of the deepfake)
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Plaintifs can use a pseudonym, and all personally identifiable information is to be redacted or filed under seal. Intimate images turned over in discovery remains in the custody of the court
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10 year statute of limitations. Starting at when the plaintif could reasonably have learned about the images, or turns 18.
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States remain free to create their own laws that are “at least as protective of the rights of a victim”.
My guess is the “at least as protective” portion is there because a state suite would prevent a federal suit under this law, as there is an explicit bar on duplicative recovery, but I have not dug into the referenced law to see what that covers.
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How close does the deep fake need to be to the original? What we saw with DALLE2 was that each person whose face was restricted made a hole in the latent space of all faces. After enough celebrities faces were restricted, there were so many latent space holes that the algorithm couldn’t make faces at all since every producable face was a certain “distance” away from a restriction.
Sure, you can make lora training on unconsenting people illegal and also make particular prompts illegal, but there is enough raw data and vague prompts to mold a generation into something that looks like it was done the illegal way without breaking either of those two restrictions.
The text of the bill specifies
when viewed as a whole by a reasonable person, is indistinguishable from an authentic visual depiction of the individual.
So it’s not trying to chase specific implementations but using a “reasonable person” test (which I would argue is a good thing)
So if I make AI porn of a celebrity but give her a face tattoo saying AI generated then its legal?
Doubt it, a reasonable person will generally be able to tell if you’re obviously taking the piss with the law. Feel free to try it and let us know how you get on though.
But that is not what the bill says, the reasonable person is not evaluating my intent, it’s evaluating if the video is “indistinguishable from an authentic visual depiction of the individual” which in this case it would be very distinguishable since the individual does not have said face tattoo.
How does your legal team compare to Scarlett Johansen’s? There’s your answer where the line is.
We’re not talking about Scarlets team here, what about Jane Doe?
When does parody/fair use come into play? If it’s a caricature of the person is that okay?
Defamation is not parody. Fake porn of someone is absolutely defamation.
I can’t legally make a “parody” of you but you’re a pedophile.
Edit: Since there seems to be some confusion, I am not calling them a pedophile, I’m saying I can’t make some sort of fake of them as a pedophile and call it a parody.
I asked a question and you called me a pedophile. Bit of an over reaction?
I’m literally doing the opposite of calling you a pedophile. I’m saying it would be illegal to call you a pedophile and claim it’s a parody. That’s not an excuse for defamation.
And I said that because I am assuming you are not a pedophile.
I’m not sure why you didn’t get that.
Ironically, the face tattoo might convince some people it’s real, since AI has a well known problem with writing coherent text.
I don’t think that’s what it means.
A depiction which is authentic might refer to provenance.
If someone authorises me to make a pornographic depiction of them, surely that’s not illegal. It’s authentic.
So it’s not a question of whether the depiction appears to be AI generated, it’s really about whether a reasonable person would conclude that the image is a depiction of a specific person.
That means tattoos, extra limbs, third books, et cetera won’t side step this law.
So the old libel trick where you give the character a small dick should work?
There are billions of people. Find the right one, and a “reasonable person” could not tell the difference.
Image a law that said you cannot name your baby a name if someone else’s name starts with the same letter. After 26 names, all future names would be illegal. The law essentially would make naming babies illegal.
The “alphabet” in this case is the distict visual depiction of all people. As long as the visual innumeration of “reasonable people” is small enough, it essentially makes any generation illegal. Conversely, if “reasonable people” granulated fine enough, it makes avoiding prosecution trivial by adding minor conflicting details.
You should maybe do a little more reading on the word “reasonable.”
“The right one” according to whom? There are two sides to a court case. The opposition can find all kinds of ways to show that person is not reasonable since they can’t recognize a very good simulation of someone’s face, just like they can show someone who is shortsighted didn’t see the car crash like they said they did.
the algorithm couldn’t make faces at all
And what would be lost? I might be missing something, but what is the benefit of being able to make fake people faces that outweighs the damage it can do to people’s lives and the chaos wrecked on society from deepfakes etc?
Just ban sexuality.
Maybe if society was more reasonable and responsible with attitudes towards sexuality then deepfakes and sexual crimes would naturaly not be significant issues.
if everyone had a box that gave them the sexual gratification they needed, then they could go about the rest of their day without injecting sexual wants into normal activities and relationships.
Adverts and marketing might have to use facts instead of sex to sell products.
I guess it could theoretically drive down the cost of amateur and low budget film and animation work.
Making it harder for animators and illustrators to make a living outweighs the reality that every woman on earth now has to fear someone making revenge porn with their likeness?
Just saying what would be lost, not that it outweighs it. It’s not like there aren’t other methods to still keep that and ban things like sexuality.
Sure, you can make lora training on unconsenting people illegal
Nobody said this needs to be illegal. Scrape up my pictures and render me jumping the grand canyon on a motorcycle or something. I don’t care.
But spread around fake nudes and then I am happy we have a law I can use against you.
Can i copywrite or patent my face, then sue other humans tglhat look like me and either get royalties or make them stop using their face?
Or where is the limit on me and my rights to my face?
Am I the only one that still gets uncomfortable every time the government tries to regulate advanced technology?
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It’s not a Libertarian thing to me as much as it’s a‘politicians don’t understand technology thing.’Arguing against laws that prohibit sexual exploitation with high tech tools, because of the nature of technology, would be like arguing against laws that prohibit rape because of the nature of human sexuality.
The “it still is going to happen” argument doesn’t matter, because the point of the law isn’t to eliminate something 100%, it is to create consequences for those who continue to do what the law prohibits.
It’s not some slippery slope either, it is extremely easy not to make involuntary pornography of other people.
The worrying aspect of these laws are always that they focus too much on the method. This law claims to be about preventing a particular new technology, but then goes on to apply to all software.
And frankly if you need a clause about how someone is making fake pornography of someone then something is off. Something shouldn’t be illegal simply because it is easy.
Deepfakes shouldn’t be any more or less illegal than photos made of a doppelgänger or an extremely photorealistic painting (and does photorealism even matter? To the victims, I mean.). A good law should explain why those actions are illegal and when and not just restrict itself to applying solely to ‘technology’ and say oh if it only restricts technology then we should be all right.
I am not ok with making art a crime.
Do not give away basic human rights because of emotional appeals.
If sexual blackmail is the problem, prosecute sexual blackmail.
Good thing consent is part of the bill then
Where do you draw the line at “art”. If nonconsensual pornography is acceptable to you, how about child porn? Where does art end and crime begin?
Use existing rules and laws for that.
CSAM is illegal across all mediums.
Okay, and we already have laws against nonconsensual pornography. But here’s the thing: those laws could easily be argued to only count for actual photographs or videos, in that many of these laws were written to tackle “revenge porn” and not “fake porn”, so someone making nonconsensual porn with AI could get charges dropped on the grounds that the porn wasn’t legitimate, or didn’t meet the definition of pornography starring the victim as defined by existing laws (because those laws were written before AI made this a mainstream problem).
Making laws that explicitly list things like photoshop and AI faceswap or “roop” tools that can create artificial nonconsensual pornography lays the groundwork for consequences for people who sexually abuse others in this way.
And let’s be realistic, if you use AI to make nonconsensual porn for personal purposes, you may be a creep, but you also aren’t going to get caught if you keep it to yourself. You also aren’t going to harm the person you’re making porn of if you’re not distributing the content you’re creating. You still shouldn’t do it, but it’s practically legal if you simply keep your weird shit to yourself and don’t publicly victimize someone with it. The people who will get caught are going to be in the latter category, and I have no problem seeing the book thrown at them.
Just as you point out revenge porn laws have a problem because they miss the mark covering fake porn, outlawing the methods amd mediums of art ued today is also going to miss the mark. Aside from the oppression issues, new methods will come along and circumvemt the targeted laws.
Just need to write laws that target the crime, here it would seem to be a combination of defamation, privacy, and assault in play for using sexuality or nudity to harm an individual and/or their reputation. Without harm, what crime is there?
You can tell when a painting is a painting. Even it’s photorealistic. You know a person created it and that it’s fiction. Often these are hung in galleries where people expect to see art.
Deep fakes exist to fool people into thinking someone did something(like pornography) when they didn’t…usually with the intention of causing harm to their reputation. That’s already illegal due to defamation laws, so really it’s just an extention of those combined with revenge porn laws.
The reason they have to include the type of tech in the law is because that tech made it possible for unskilled bad actors to get on it…therefore there’ll be more people committing these types of crimes against others. It’s a good thing they’re addressing this issue.
The reason they have to include the type of tech in the law is because that tech made it possible for unskilled bad actors to get on it
Yeah, and that’s the part I don’t like. If you can’t define why it’s bad without taking into account the skill level of the criminal then I’m not convinced it’s bad.
As you point out defamation is already illegal and deliberately spreading false information about someone with the intent to harm their reputation is obviously wrong and way easier to define.
And is that not why you consider a painting less ‘bad’? Because it couldn’t be misconstrued as evidence? Note that the act explicitly says a digital forgery should be considered a forgery even when it’s made abundantly clear that it’s not authentic.
Look, I’m a professional artist. The general rule is you have to change something 15% to 30%(depending on location) for it to not come into violation of copyright laws. That’s why you see satirical depictions of brands in cartoons and such.
This new law has to take into consideration art laws, defamation laws, revenge porn laws, slander laws, and the right for a person to own their likeness.
It is absolutely necessary to reign this in before serious harm is done to someone. The point of writing a law to address this specific issue is because for the law actually be effective, it must be written to address the specific problem this technology presents. I listed the other laws to show its consistent with ones we already have. There’s nothing wrong with adding in another to protect people.
As for the unskilled part, the point of that is a skilled person creating deepfake porn by hand, frame by frame should get in as much trouble as an unskilled person using ai. The AI is just going to make it so more unethical people are making this crap…so more if it will exist. That’s a problem that needs addressing.
You have a nice day now.
deleted by creator
There are stark differences between the scenarios you’re presenting, but going to the core of your point, is it even legal to paint a photorealistic nude?
I don’t know of any court cases about this specific subject, but I remember when Rush painted Tiger Woods (“The masters at Augusta”), he was sued.
He got away with not having to pay money to Tiger Woods, but partly because it’s a stylized painting and it pushed towards first amendment rights. This wouldn’t work in a photorealistic depiction, so it seems highly unlikely that such a painting would be OK…
Fair, but then this law serves no purpose. The thing it was designed to prevent was already illegal.
it is extremely easy not to make involuntary pornography of other people.
Eh. The term is ill-defined, so I can see some ultra-orthodox right-wing judge trying to argue that - say - jokes about JD Vance fucking a couch constitute violations of the revenge porn law. I can see some baroque interpretation by Scalia used to prohibit all forms of digitally transmitted pornography. I can also see some asshole trying to claim baby pictures on Facebook leave the company or even the parent liable for child pornography. Etc, etc.
But a lot of this boils down to vindictive and despicable politicians trying to inflict harm on political opponents by any means necessary. The notion that we can’t have any kind of technology regulation because bad politicians and sadistic cops exist leaves us ceding the entire legislative process to the conservatives who we know are going to abuse the law.
We shouldn’t be afraid to do the right thing now on the grounds that someone else might do the wrong thing tomorrow.
People have been using magazine clippings glued onto porn actress heads since before I was born. Photoshop for over a decade.
How do you delineate between a really good photoshop and “ai”?
You don’t. This law doesn’t distinguish between the two, and quite frankly, shouldn’t.
So you’re saying if someone makes a nude that is remotely similar to your likeness you can sue them.
What do you do about identical twins if one chooses to be a porn star and takes self shots? Wouldn’t it look the same? Is it a crime to sell nudes if you have an identical twin?
What about anybody who is not related but looks VERY SIMILAR - we’ve probably all heard stories of this happening.
Finally, how do you know if it’s a US citizen that created the image vs anybody in any other country not bound by US laws?
What if an AI creates a nude and then a child is born, and 20 years later they grow up to look identical to the ai generated image?
There’s so many reasons why generated images should be treated like art and protected as free speech imo. It’s one thing if someone you know makes fake nudes of you and then uses them to ruin your image - that’s likely covered under many other laws including something like slander.
People have been going to 11 trying to do anything preventing machine learning from being used for absolutely anything. It’s completely predictable because everyone wants a cut of whatever wealth may be generated by a new technology but maybe we should adapt to the new tool rather than punishing everybody for using it. AI is quickly turning into a tool that will only be usable by multibillion dollar companies with in house legal teams that can handle all the lawsuits.
So you’re saying if someone makes a nude that is remotely similar to your likeness you can sue them.
The law specifies that the images are indistinguishable from reality and are presented as you, directly or indirectly.
What do you do about identical twins if one chooses to be a porn star and takes self shots? Wouldn’t it look the same? Is it a crime to sell nudes if you have an identical twin?
If the images were of twin A and presented as twin B, I think this law would apply, as it would be fake porn of twin B.
What about anybody who is not related but looks VERY SIMILAR - we’ve probably all heard stories of this happening.
Again, if it’s being presented as someone it’s not, that’s an issue.
Finally, how do you know if it’s a US citizen that created the image vs anybody in any other country not bound by US laws?
Then the law does not apply. That’s literally how all laws work.
What if an AI creates a nude and then a child is born, and 20 years later they grow up to look identical to the ai generated image?
Was it presented as a nude of that person that did not yet exist? Impressive that they knew what their parents would name them ahead of time. Again, it must be presented as this person, directly or indirectly. This scenario couldn’t happen.
Regarding trying to ruin someone’s image, I imagine that would indeed fall under some form of defamation laws, although not slander as that is specifically spoken words. I do agree we must tread carefully regarding free speech rights, however are we not also expected to have our rights to privacy? Even if someone isn’t trying to defame us, even if an image is fake, if at face value it’s completely indistinguishable from being real does it make a difference? Obviously there’s no simple solution and I think I agree with you that a law such as this probably isn’t it.
I’m a bit lost on your last bit, however. Are you saying this law will further push AI into the hands of large corporations? I don’t see that, so much as see them being forced to implement stronger filters, while pushing users to the open source community in search to get around them. Horny people gonna horny and this law won’t stop that, it’d only stop public facing models from producing such content and stop individuals from distributing it.
I’m a bit lost on your last bit, however. Are you saying this law will further push AI into the hands of large corporations? I don’t see that, so much as see them being forced to implement stronger filters, while pushing users to the open source community in search to get around them. Horny people gonna horny and this law won’t stop that, it’d only stop public facing models from producing such content and stop individuals from distributing it.
Remember how taxi medallions were worth millions and millions of dollars in NYC and Boston before uber? (1.2m was the peak per medallion in nyc. They dropped to like 35k at one point and are now around 140k.) Remember how uber got billions in VC money to fight the taxi industry lobbyists and effectively operates despite violating the systems that were in place for ages that prevented small independent operators from being taxis without having a bunch of seed money? Those billions of dollars let them win the legal fights and continue operating. You or I could never have challenged it.
That’s the comparison I was making. If you regulate AI into the ground the only innovations and usage will come from big money interests, because they can eat the lawsuits. Individuals can’t eat the lawsuits. The law only applies to the small fries, the big guys cheat and get away with it because there is no transparency and a whole lot of pinky swears.
Arguing against laws that prohibit sexual exploitation with high tech tools
I think it’s gross but, it’s not sexual exploitation unless people writing homoerotic fanfictions about YouTubers is also sexual exploitation imo
AOC is young. I think she’s a politician that does understand the technology and if she needs to she can educate the other boomers on the bill.
I would be careful about assuming knowledge based on age. Young people might use technology without understanding it, and old people might understand it and don’t want to use it.
Technology needs to be regulated, and I would not trust people with profit incentives to do so.
IMO, it is always important to investigate if a regulation wants to prevent a real issue or if they just mention some populist reasons for doing whatever they want.
I do agree that age is not the determining factor but it definitely plays one. But yeah we need experts advising our old government.
She is about my age. And I still do not think she, or anyone really, understands the technology we have.
That is true. AI itself is actually still a mystery to everyone. But I bet she knows what wifi is.
Why even specifically mention AI? Are there already laws that cover creating a sexually explicit likeness without consent e.g. with photoshop or just painting one? If so why wouldn’t those laws also cover AI and if not why wouldn’t the law also wish to cover these cases?
So what do you propose instead? Doing nothing about anything?
I didn’t post with an alternative solution in mind as much as I was looking to elicit conversation that provided more perspective and context that would assuage my concerns. -I’ve since got that from some of the others responses.
You need to start somewhere. Regulation will always lag behind technology. But sooner or later things will get regulated. Once a good number of people are affected by something, rules will be brought in by the people. That’s how democracy works.
These rules are never perfect. Sometimes, to make rules effective, they have to be multilayered (swiss cheese model). But that makes them too expensive to implement. So eventually things end in a compromise where cost and effectiveness balance.
—It’s not a Libertarian thing to me as much as it’s a ‘politicians don’t understand firearms thing.’
—It’s not a Libertarian thing to me as much as it’s a ‘politicians don’t understand healthcare thing.’
—It’s not a Libertarian thing to me as much as it’s a ‘politicians don’t understand medical thing.’
🎯
This kind of argument is always just a thought-terminator. No actual argument for why the law is bad, just a low-effort jab that lawmakers are too stupid to pass a good law.
It’s okay, I’m pretty sure they are simply showing that Libertarian ideology is based in a mistrust of politicians — and to a degree, they’re right. I don’t typically promote or discuss the ideology. I just think as I currently watch YouTube videos on the nuances of cybersecurity, that it’s so easy for well-informed professional experts to make far reaching mistakes, that it seems absurd to expect uneducated politicians to create regulations that are simultaneously targeted enough to not cause excess issues while still broad enough to effectively reduce the unwanted behavior.
I still think back to Clinton arguing that regulating the internet was akin to “nailing jello to the wall.”
I still think back to Clinton arguing that regulating the internet was akin to “nailing jello to the wall.”
But the internet is extremely well regulated, thanks to organizations like ICANN & IANA whose entire existence is the result of a U.S. Department of Commerce contract to properly regulate names, addresses, and routing tables. Failure to obey the rules will get your peering agreements terminated, and sever you from the Internet. Failure to cut off rule violators can get you in trouble.
It’s what makes sure ISPs don’t break the Internet doing arbitrary shit, and keeps shady groups from improperly routing internet traffic through their datacenters without consequences.
I think just revisiting the point that politicians aren’t going to be exact when talking about highly technical things like this, and that Clinton very likely meant “The Web” and not “The Internet”.
Because I don’t want to take the time going through every legislative framework I just listed to cite the shitpile of mistakes and revisions or because youve never read the pile of redacted and revised subparagraphs found in every single regulatory legislation? The fact you think it’s that simple to compile proof shows you have never read any actual legislative documents. If you want proof, ill list off the top of my head the shit NYS fucked up because Ive read them some what recently:
SAFE Act:
-Original framework had no ban on high capacity magazines because they thought magazines were disposable and as long as they banned the sale the existing HCM’s would be phased out.
-Required AR registration with no system to enforce it, then continued to deny all FOIL requests and judicial requests of the number of registered AR’s because the turnout was so dismal.
-Issues red flag laws that have no method of enforcement or way of including when a person is a red flag offender on the background check performed at point of sale.
-Added the requirement for pistol permit applicants to have range training but never amended the part of the law that bans anyone from using a pistol without being approved for a pistol permit.
-They couldn’t appropriately define imminent danger and had the state supreme court overturn the regulation entirely
Recreational Marijuana: seriously just fuckin google this one. It’s so embarrassing how bad they botched the entire thing.
-NYS had millions of dollars of marijuana crops with nowhere to go because they released tons of farming licenses and barely any dispensary licenses.
honestly I’m not taking the time to list all of these. Google it and you will see resounding incompetence.
Why aren’t you on lemmy.one?
I barely understand how any of the instances stuff work. What is lemmy.one and why should I be on it?
Politicians understand Healthcare and guns, they just don’t care about the fallout.
At least they have now started to try to learn about the tech they’re trying to regulate, as opposed to Ted Stevens who obviously just read a prepared speech someone else had made in his famous “Series of Tubes” speech.
More like the silicon valley funding machine had someone write up the bill and hand it over to a senator to retype on official letterhead.
Ok, fist of all, politicians need to stop it with these acronyms for every law they want to pass. It’s getting ridiculous. Just give the damned law a regular-ass name. It doesn’t have to be all special and catchy-sounding damn.
Second, I’m really surprised to hear of anything passing the senate unanimously, other than a bill expressing the love of silly acronyms. And weak campaign finance laws.
Anyway, I’m glad that at least something is being done to address this, but I just know someone in the House is gonna fuck this up.
I looked it up: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/3696/all-actions
It passed by unanimous voice vote. That is, the president of the Senate (pro tempore, usually Patty Murray) asked for all in favor, and at least one person said “yea” and when asked for all opposed, nobody said “nay”. There wasn’t a roll call vote, so we don’t know how many people (or who) actually voted for it.
Edit: it was probably on C-Span, so you can probably find a recording and get an idea of how many people were there, and how many yeas you hear, if you’re so inclined.
They do love backronyms
Ngl, so do I
distribute, or receive the deepfake pornography
Does this make deepfake pornography more restricted than real sexual images either created or publicly released without consent?
I think so. In a way, it makes sense – a lot of people are of the (shitty) opinion that if you take lewd pictures of yourself, it’s your fault if they’re disseminated. With lewd deepfakes, there’s less opportunity for victim blaming, and therefore wider support.
Maybe, but my understanding is that it’s legal to have photos of someone actually being the victim of a sex crime, not just photos of consensual acts.
To improve rights to relief for individuals affected by non-consensual activities involving intimate digital forgeries, and for other purposes.
Congress finds that:
(1) Digital forgeries, often called deepfakes, are synthetic images and videos that look realistic. The technology to create digital forgeries is now ubiquitous and easy to use. Hundreds of apps are available that can quickly generate digital forgeries without the need for any technical expertise.
(2) Digital forgeries can be wholly fictitious but can also manipulate images of real people to depict sexually intimate conduct that did not occur. For example, some digital forgeries will paste the face of an individual onto the body of a real or fictitious individual who is nude or who is engaging in sexual activity. Another example is a photograph of an individual that is manipulated to digitally remove the clothing of the individual so that the person appears to be nude.
“(3) DIGITAL FORGERY.—
“(A) IN GENERAL.—The term ‘digital forgery’ means any intimate visual depiction of an identifiable individual created through the use of software, machine learning, artificial intelligence, or any other computer-generated or technological means, including by adapting, modifying, manipulating, or altering an authentic visual depiction, that, when viewed as a whole by a reasonable person, is indistinguishable from an authentic visual depiction of the individual.
Not convinced on this one
It seems like the bill is being pitched as protecting women who have fake nudes passed around their school but the text of the bill seems more aimed at the Taylor swift case.
1 The bill only applies where there is an “intent to distribute”
2 The bill talks about damages being calculated based on the profit of the defendant
The bill also states that you can’t label the image as AI generated or rely on the context of publication to avoid running afoul of this law. That seems at odds with the 1st amendment.
All this law does is give victims the right to sue people who make involuntary porn of them, and clearly defines AI technology as something that you can sue over when it is used to simulate your likeness.
The 1st amendment doesn’t matter for a civil matter like this. Libel and Slander are protected forms of speech, but you are still liable for the damage done when you intentionally lie about people. Likewise, you have the right to make whatever kind of art you want, but if you make art depicting private citizens in a pornographic context without their consent, the person you are depicting now has the right to seek legal damages for your abuse.
I am a firm believer in the concept that “Your rights end where mine begin”. You have the right to make art of me if you please, and I have the right to seek damages from you if your art slanders, defames, or sexualizes me in a pornographic way without my consent. Those are things that do real world damage, so I see no issue with victims of these things being given a voice.
The bill only applies where there is an “intent to distribute”
That’s a predicate for any law bound to the Commerce Clause. You need to demonstrate the regulation is being applied to interstate traffic. Anything else would be limited to state/municipal regulations.
The bill talks about damages being calculated based on the profit of the defendant
That’s arguably a better rule than the more traditional flat-fee penalties, as it curbs the impulse to treat violations as cost-of-business. A firm that makes $1B/year isn’t going to blink at a handful of $1000 judgements.
The bill also states that you can’t label the image as AI generated or rely on the context of publication to avoid running afoul of this law.
A revenge-porn law that can be evaded by asserting “This isn’t Taylor Swift, its Tay Swiff and any resemblance of an existing celebrity is purely coincidental” would be toothless. We already apply these rules for traditional animated assets. You’d be liable for producing an animated short staring “Definitely Not Mickey Mouse” under the same reasoning.
This doesn’t prevent you from creating a unique art asset. And certainly there’s a superabundance of original pornographic art models and porn models generated with the consent of the living model. The hitch here is obvious, though. You’re presumed to own your own likeness.
My biggest complaint is that it only seems to apply to pornography. And I suspect we’ll see people challenge the application of the law by producing “parody” porn or “news commentary” porn. What the SCOTUS does with that remains to be seen.
That’s arguably a better rule than the more traditional flat-fee penalties, as it curbs the impulse to treat violations as cost-of-business. A firm that makes $1B/year isn’t going to blink at a handful of $1000 judgements.
No argument there but it reinforces my point that this law is written for Taylor swift and not a random high schooler.
You’d be liable for producing an animated short staring “Definitely Not Mickey Mouse” under the same reasoning.
Except that there are fair use exceptions specifically to prevent copyright law from running afoul of the first amendment. You can see the parody exception used in many episodes of south park for example and even specifically used to depict Mickey Mouse. Either this bill allows for those types of uses in which case it’s toothless anyway or it’s much more restrictive to speech than existing copyright law.
written for Taylor swift and not a random high schooler.
In a sane world, class action lawsuits would balance these scales.
there are fair use exceptions specifically to prevent copyright law from running afoul of the first amendment
Why would revenge porn constitute fair use? This seems more akin to slander.
You keep referring to this as revenge porn which to me is a case where someone spreads nudes around as a way to punish their current or former partner. You could use AI to generate material to use as revenge porn, but I bet most AI nudes are not that.
Think about a political comic showing a pro-corporate politician performing a sex act with Jeff bezos. Clearly that would be protected speech. If you generate the same image with generative AI though then suddenly it’s illegal even if you clearly label it as being a parody. That’s the concern. Moreover, the slander/libel angle doesn’t make sense if you include a warning that the image is generated, as you are not making a false statement.
To sum up why I think this bill is kinda weird and likely to be ineffective, it’s perfectly legal for me to generate and distribute a fake ai video of my neighbor shooting a puppy as long as I don’t present it as a real video. If I generate the same video but my neighbor’s dick is hanging out, straight to jail. It’s not consistent.
where someone spreads nudes around as a way to punish their current or former partner
I would consider, as an example, a student who created a vulgar AI porn display of another student or teacher out of some sense of spite an example of “revenge porn”. Same with a coworker or boss trying to humiliate someone at the office.
Think about a political comic showing a pro-corporate politician performing a sex act with Jeff bezos.
That’s another good example. The Trump/Putin kissing mural is a great example of something that ends up being homophobic rather than partisan.
it’s perfectly legal for me to generate and distribute a fake ai video of my neighbor shooting a puppy
If you used it to slander your neighbor, it would not be legal.
That’s another good example. The Trump/Putin kissing mural is a great example of something that ends up being homophobic rather than partisan.
So you think it should be illegal?
If you used it to slander your neighbor, it would not be legal.
You’re entirely ignoring my point, I’m not trying to pass the video off as real therefore it’s not slander.
So you think it should be illegal?
I think it’s an example of partisan language that ends up being blandly homophobic.
You’re entirely ignoring my point
Why would putting up a giant sign reading “My neighbor murders dogs for fun” be a tort but a mural to the same effect be protected?
Oh boo hoo you can’t go in a movie theater and yell “fire” we are so oppressed
Ohh boy I bet the users in the unstable community are shaking right now
Question from an outsider:
Do all bills in the states have to have a fancy acronym?
It looks like the senate is the first step, is that right? Next is the house? It’s the opposite where I am.Not all bills do, but the majority of big ones you hear about do. It’s simply a marketing thing
And correct, it’ll move to the House, where if it passes it will move to the president’s desk. Considering it was unanimous in the Senate, I can’t see it having any issues in the House.
Does the president ever refuse to sign it?
It happens, although they’re relatively rare. Since 2000 there have been a total of 46 vetoes, with each president since Bush vetoing 10-12 bills.
For context, FDR had the most vetoes of any president, totaling 635 over his 12 years in office.
Bills in the US can originate from either the house or the Senate. If it passes one then it goes to the other. If it passes both then it goes to the President to be signed into law.
E: technically there is an exception that bills for raising revenue have to originate in the house but that the Senate can propose or concur with amendments. But for all intents and purposes the vast majority of bills can originate in either body.
No, but it does help them to garner support, stupidly enough.
Is this just “AI porn bill” because that’s the most common way of doing it these days? I should expect the product is what’s being sanctioned and not the method.
Not just AI…
…any intimate visual depiction of an identifiable individual created through the use of software, machine learning, artificial intelligence, or any other computer-generated or technological means….
This probably also covers using MS Paint.
Back to my hand drawn stick figure celebrity porn, I suppose.
As long as it can’t be mistaken for the actual person it moves the stigma from them doing weird things to the artist doing weird things
I was going to ask the same thing. Is a hand-drawn picture illegal?
From the text of the bill:
The term ‘digital forgery’ means any intimate visual depiction of an identifiable individual created through the use of software, machine learning, artificial intelligence, or any other computer-generated or technological means, including by adapting, modifying, manipulating, or altering an authentic visual depiction, that, when viewed as a whole by a reasonable person, is indistinguishable from an authentic visual depiction of the individual.
So no.
Unless you use a digital pen.
No, because if you use a digital pen it still has to meet the threshold of being indistinguishable from the real thing
Thanks. So photorealistic paintings are still legal, although I suppose they’re not a big problem in practice. It’s still weird that the method of creation matters, although “any other technological means” is pretty broad. Are paintbrushes a technology? Does using a digital camera to photograph a painting count as creating a visual depiction?
I’m vaguely worried about the first-amendment implications.
I think it comes down to the last part - indistinguishable by a reasonable person as an authentic visual depiction. That’ll be up to courts to decide, but I think a painting would be pretty obviously not an authentic visual depiction.
This bill targets digital (computer made or altered) forgeries. Not hand-drawn sketches.
Only if a robot draws it?
No, it criminalizes anything created involving a computer that is realistic-looking.
Sen. Dick Durbin
OK, that’s it. The final proof I needed that we live in a simulation and whoever runs it is just fucking with us.
