US Lawmakers Introduce NO FAKES Act to Ban Digital Replicas

• Two Democratic senators and two Republican Senators came together to propose the NO FAKES Act.
• The bill aims to prohibit replication during a user's lifetime and up to 70 years after their death.
• If a user's voice, face, or body is replicated, they can seek compensation and the perpetrator will be punished.

Digital replicas might soon be banned. You heard that right. Ever since AI became mainstream, impersonation has been a huge concern. But now US lawmakers have introduced a new bill to tackle the growing problem of deepfakes.

The bill is called the NO FAKES Act, which stands for Nurture Originals, Foster Art and Keep Entertainment Safe' and was introduced by Democratic Senators Chris Coons and Amy Klobuchar and Republican Senators Marsha Blackburn and Thom Tillis earlier this week.

Under this bill, AI tools are banned from replicating a user's body, face, or voice during their lifetime and for 70 years after their death. If any tool is found to be violating this rule, the user will have the right to seek compensation.

It doesn't matter if the accused is an individual or a company. Both will be subjected to the same law if they are found producing, hosting, or even sharing these unauthorized deepfakes.

Everyone deserves the right to own and protect their voice and likeness, no matter if you're Taylor Swift or anyone else' - Senator Coons

He further added that while AI certainly helps foster creativity, it shouldn't come at the cost of compromising one's identity.

Do We Really Need This Bill?

The bill couldn't have come at a better time. In the past few months alone, there have been several high-profile cases involving deepfakes that go on to show how dangerous AI can be when wrongly used.

• For example, a recent deepfake showed Kamala Harris making false statements.
• Similarly, sexually explicit deepfakes of popular singer Taylor Swift took the internet by storm in late January this year.
• Public figures aren't the only ones affected. For example, a Baltimore high school principal's voice was cloned and used to create a fake audio that contained racist and derogatory comments about the students and the staff.

The other issue with AI replication is unwanted digital hauntings. This refers to the AI simulation of dead people (yes these services are already being offered by AI companies).

Academics at Cambridge University believe that such sensitive services should not only seek the consent of the ones they are simulating but also of the ones who will be interacting with them. Unauthorized replication should be avoided at all costs in this case.

US senators had also proposed the COPIED Act (Content Origin Protection and Integrity from Edited and Deepfaked Media) in mid-July. This Act seeks to establish a global standard of watermarking AI-generated content for better transparency and authenticity of online content.

The UK has already banned and criminalized the creation of sexually explicit deepfakes and has also blocked two popular deepfake porn websites. Looks like the US is all set to follow suit.

The DEFIANCE Act

The NO FAKES Act follows the recent passage of the DEFIANCE Act at the Senate that allowed victims of sexual deepfakes to seek compensation.

Interestingly, although the hearing of the DEFIANCE ACT mentioned the risks of OpenAI's Dall-E, Adobe Firefly, and Midjourney, OpenAI has pledged its support for the NO FAKES Act.

The company's vice president of global affairs, Anna Makanju, not only indicated the support but also said that it's high time we have a proper regulation in place to protect artists and creators from having their work copied.

Apart from OpenAI, various entertainment organizations such as the Motion Picture Association, the Recording Academy, the RIAA, and SAG-AFTRA have extended their support to the new bill.

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