More than 400 AI experts, celebrities, politicians and activists signed an open letter demanding lawmakers take action against deep technology.
The letter argued that the growing number of AI-generated videos are a threat to society due to the involvement of sexual images, child pornography, fraud and political misinformation.
Deepfakes are media generated by artificial intelligence that imitate human voices, images and videos that can be mistaken for real ones.
The letter states that deepfake technology is misleading the public, making it more difficult to discern what is real on the Internet, and therefore it is more important than ever to implement formalized laws “to protect our ability to recognize human beings.” real”.
The calls for stricter regulations come after sexually explicit images of Taylor Swift went viral on social media last month.
Taylor Swift was the target of sexually explicit deepfake images that went viral on X last month
Most of the people targeted by deepfakes are women, and the videos appeared as early as 2018. One video was directed at actress Natalie Portman.
“Deepfakes are a huge threat to human society and are already causing increasing harm to individuals, communities, and the functioning of democracy,” said Andrew Critch, an AI researcher in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC Berkeley. and main author of the article. letter.
“We need immediate action to combat the proliferation of deepfakes, and my colleagues and I created this letter as a way for people around the world to show their support for legislative efforts to stop deepfakes.”
Deepfakes have become so prevalent in society that between 2022 and 2023, the amount of fake sexual content increased by more than 400 percent, while fraud increased by a staggering 3,000 percent in that period, according to the Campaign to ban deepfakes.
Most people agree that people who share deepfake pornography online should face criminal charges.
Kristen Bell was another celebrity targeted in a deepfake video last year.
The letter, titled ‘Disrupting the deepfake supply chain,’ calls for a complete ban on deepfake technology and demands that lawmakers fully criminalize deepfake child pornography and establish criminal penalties for anyone who knowingly creates or shares such content.
The signatories also demanded that software developers and distributors be held accountable for anyone who uses their audiovisual products to create deepfakes.
“It is increasingly clear that anyone, anywhere, could be a target of harmful deepfakes, including our children,” said Sarah Gardner, executive director of the Heat Initiative.
“Legislators work for us and have a moral imperative to protect our children by acting quickly to hold accountable the platforms and bad actors who are enabling the proliferation of child sexual abuse material,” he added.
Emma Watson was yet another target of deepfake technology when a fake video of her appeared online
Marvel actress Scarlett Johansson came under fire last year when a fake video ad appeared promoting Lisa AI.
The letter encouraged media companies, software developers and device manufacturers to work together to create authentication methods, such as adding tamper-proof digital seals and cryptographic signature techniques to verify that content is real.
He also stated that the increasing amount of non-consensual pornography is one of the main reasons why the letter is so important, citing a report which found that deepfake porn accounts for 98 percent of all such online videos.
These videos received 34 million views in 2023, with women making up 99 percent of those targeted.
The new letter comes as Taylor Swift added her name to the dozens of other celebrities who were victims of deepfake images, when non-consensual, sexually explicit images went viral on X, garnering more than 27 million views and 260,000 likes before the images were deleted.
Female celebrities have been the main target of deepfake images since 2018, when Natalie Portman appeared in a video.
Marvel actress Scarlett Johansson also came under fire last year when a fake video ad appeared promoting Lisa AI.
In March, Harry Potter star Emma Watson appeared in a fake ad on social media where she appeared to engage in a sexual act.
Technology is advancing so quickly that anyone can be a target, and the general public is increasingly falling victim to deepfakes, the letter states.
More than 30 teenagers at a New Jersey high school were attacked last year when a classmate created and spread fake images of them online, sparking outrage among students and parents.
“Today we are seeing that it is affecting individuals because it is very immediate, very fast,” ActiveFence researcher Amir Oneli told Dailymail.com in October.
“The most tragic thing is that no one is safe.”