Rep. Joe Morelle, D.-N.Y., appeared with a New Jersey high school victim of nonconsensual sexually explicit deepfakes to discuss a bill stalled in the House.
Rep. Joe Morelle, D.-N.Y., appeared with a New Jersey high school victim of nonconsensual sexually explicit deepfakes to discuss a bill stalled in the House.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of the threat AI poses to human social structures. We have yet to appreciate the gravity of what these new technologies enable. It’s incredibly dangerous yet equally naive to think that AI-generated porn laws will keep us safe.
Firstly, the cat’s out of the bag. We can ban the technology or its misuse all we like, but can we really practically stop people from computing mathematical functions? Legal or not, generative AI can and will be used to generate content that hurts people. We need better planning for identifying, authenticating, and responding when this misuse happens.
Secondly, we have an already huge, huge problem with fake news and disinformation. What is such a law for this special case of AI porn going to do for our inability to address harmful content?
It’s a shame, but it strikes me as more feel-good than actually doing something effective.
People said the same thing when, after the printing press, there was rampant plagiarism and reverse-plagiarism (attributing words to someone who never said them).
After a period of epistemic chaos, the result was several decades of chartered monopoly and government censorship to get it under control.
I hope we won’t need heavy-handed regulation this time around. But that will only happen if we learn from history. We need to get this under control now, while we have the chance to start a framework for protecting our fellow human beings from harm. Complaining that it’s hard is not an excuse for doing nothing.
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Just ban any instance of generative unconsentual generative nudity, AI or not.
I just drew a stick figure of Johnny Depp and it’s indeed naked. And I’d do it again, too.