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Teen deepfake victim pushes for federal law targeting AI-generated explicit content
(www.nbcnews.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Think of the children being used to push an agenda that helps the very wealthy? Well I'll be, what a totally new and not at all predictable move.
Ban all ai that aren't owned by rich people, make open source impossible, restrict everything that might allow regular people to compete with the corporations - only then will you children be safe!
I'm as suspicious of "think of the children" stuff as anyone here but I don't see how we are fighting for the rights of the people by defending non-consensual deepfake porn impersonation, of children or anyone.
If someone makes deepfake porn of my little cousin or Emma Watson, there's no scenario where this isn't a shitty thing to do to a person, and I don't see how the masses are being oppressed by this being banned. What, do we need to deepfake Joe Biden getting it on to protest against the government?
Not only the harassment of being subjected to something like this seems horrible, it's reasonable to say that people ought to have rights over their own likeness, no? It's not even a matter of journalistic interest because it's something completely made-up.
We're not talking about whether we should make fakes. We're talking about whether people who do, should be prosecuted - IE physically overpowered by police officers, restrained with handcuffs, and locked up in a prison cell. Some empathy?
If some classmate of your little cousin makes a fake, should the police come and drag them out of school and throw them in prison? You think that would help?
Realistically, it's as likely to happen as prosecution of kids who "get into fights" for assault. Kids tell mean lies about each other but that is not resolved in civil suits over defamation. Even between adults, that's not the usual thing.
Civil suits under this bill would be mainly targeted against internet services, because they have the money. And it would largely be used over celebrity fakes. That's the overwhelming part of fakes out there and they have the money to splurge on suing people who can't pay. It would be wealthy, powerful people using it against horny teens.
Also, this bill is so ripe for industrial abuse. Insert a risqué scene in a movie, and suddenly "pirates" can be prosecuted under this.
You do have a point about the excesses of police work, but if you want to talk about empathy you should also consider the position of the kid who is harassed and traumatized over something they didn't even have any say over. There is some discussion to be had over what degree of punishment ought to be appropriate, and the need to limit police brutality, well beyond this particular matter.
But as far as demanding that every such work is taken down, and giving vulnerable people the means to demand so without exposing themselves further, it is perfectly reasonable.
Except that in the case of deepfake porn it's not a matter of fuzzy two-sided conflicts. One side is creating the whole problem, and one side is just the victim of it despite not being involved in any way. That's the whole point of deepfake. The most that lies might play into it is in finding out that the porn is real, and in such case there is even more reason to take it down.
Gotta say I have a hard time feeling sorry for the people who can't be satisfied by the frankly immense amount of porn we have and decided that they absolutely must have porn from that one specific person who never consented to it. Maybe they are wealthy and powerful, sure. Does that mean it's a free pass to fabricate deepfake porn with their likenesses? I don't think so. Nobody is owed that. As much as you insist that it will be used by the powerful against the poor masses, it still seems to me that whatever regular dude decides to do it is crossing serious boundaries. This is not brave freedom fighter, it's just an asshole.
I think most likely what will happen is that these internet services will just take those down. As they should.