‘No Fakes Act’ Seeks to Ban Unauthorized AI-Generated Likenesses
A newly proposed bipartisan senate bill is aiming to protect people from having their likeness and voice generated by artificial intelligence (AI).
Last week, four U.S. senators announced the draft legislation, called The Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act of 2023 — or the “No Fakes Act.” The bill would give people a legal recourse for the unauthorized AI replication of their likeness.
Under the act, celebrities and ordinary people who have had their voice or image replicated without their consent by AI software could sue for damages against both the creator of the AI deepfake as well as any platforms that knowingly hosted, published, or distributed it.
The bill would prevent the “production of a digital replica without consent of the applicable individual or rights holder” — unless part of a news, public affairs, sports broadcast, documentary, or biographical work. The rights would apply throughout a person’s lifetime and, for their estate, 70 years after their death.
The draft legislation includes several First Amendment-related exceptions. It carves out exceptions including the use of deepfakes for news, sports broadcasts, and documentaries and “for purposes of comment, criticism, or parody” under the First Amendment
Senators Chris Coons, Marsha Blackburn, Amy Klobuchar, and Thom Tillis sponsored the bill which aims to standardize rules around AI technology using a person’s faces, names, and voices.
“Generative artificial intelligence has opened doors to exciting new artistic possibilities, but it also presents unique challenges that make it easier than ever to use someone’s voice, image, or likeness without their consent,” Senator Chris Coons says in a written statement.
“Creators around the nation are calling on Congress to lay out clear policies regulating the use and impact of generative AI, and Congress must strike the right balance to defend individual rights, abide by the First Amendment, and foster AI innovation and creativity.”
According to The Los Angeles Times, the senators’ proposal mentioned examples of recent AI-generated deepfakes of celebrities such as Drake, The Weekend, and Tom Hanks. The actor discovered that a dental company had used a deepfaked image of him in its promotional video — without his consent.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via TikTok/@unrealmargot.
