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.

  • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    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.

    • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      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.

      • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        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.

        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.

        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.

        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.

        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.

      • wildginger
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        10 months ago

        If my little cousin makes AI child porn, of anyone at all let alone a classmate he knows physically in real life, I dont think he should be allowed to kick his feet and go about his day.

        Like… Making kiddie porn of your classmates is not excusable because youre a horny teen. Sorry, bud, its fucking not

        • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          If two 14-year-olds get it on, they should both be prosecuted for child abuse? That is what you are actually saying?

          • wildginger
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            10 months ago

            You can only fuck by creating AI porn of the person you are trying to have sex with against their will? Are you a robot?

            The people who think creating non consentual AI child porn is equivalent to sex need to spend time outside

    • curiousaur@reddthat.com
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      10 months ago

      The issue is there really is no way to stop it unless you make ai illegal. The cat is already out of the bag. The models and hardware are getting better and faster and cheaper.

      How do you suppose you enforce a law like this when people stop even sharing the photos they create, maybe don’t even save them themselves, because it’s so easy and instant to create more when you want to see them. “Put her face on her body in this position”, bam, instant album of photos to jerk off to, then delete them. That’s how good and how available these models are getting.

      How do you think restrictions on this should, or could, be enforced?

      • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Nah, making deepfake porn illegal doesn’t require making all of AI illegal. As proposed this law would neither apply to candid photography generation nor to entirely imaginary AI porn. As proposed it’s targetting those generating and distributing such images rather than the technology itself, and giving victims means to defend themselves against being publicly humilliated.

        It could be handled much like any matter of copyright is, that anyone hosting and sharing it must take it down or face the punishment.

        Technology allows many things to be done quickly and easily, but whether they are legal and protected is a whole different matter. The models can be as good as they want, as quick as copying a file, it doesn’t mean that people won’t be sued over it.

        It seems a bit questionable to assume that everything that is technologically possible ought to be permitted, no matter who is harmed. And frankly this is much more harmful than any piracy or infringement.

        • curiousaur@reddthat.com
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          10 months ago

          When it’s widely available, you could share a perfectly legal photo, along with the prompt. Then everyone who runs it would see similar generated images on their own devices, without distributing anything illegal.

          I’m trying to point out how futile it is to fight this, and that any attempt to actually stop it will eventually lead to limits on the AI models themselves.

          (Sorry didn’t mean to reply twice, Lemmy things)

          • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Welp, you deleted the one I had replied to and cut off my response. I had replied this:

            Deepfakes don’t happen by accident. It’s also not “perfectly legal” to distribute and alter a photo you have no permission to use.

            Your argument essentially seems to be that because people will try to find ways around it, no law should be created and no action should be taken to prevent it, is this right? Because this could be said of pretty much any law and it isn’t a particularly compelling argument. Part of enforcing the law is getting around the tricky ways people try to disguise their actions.

            Nevermind that this proposed law is supposed to protect the victims who are harassed because of it. If it was so invisible, they wouldn’t be suffering.

            If this will eventually lead to AI models getting limitations to prevent people from using them for deepfake porn… Good? Who loses beyond the people trying to make deepfake porn

            • curiousaur@reddthat.com
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              10 months ago

              There isn’t ways to limit certain models without limiting all AI tech, which is what the first comment above from another user was saying. That corporations want to be the only ones using it by keeping it out of the hands of regular people, and this plays into that.

              Something this powerful should absolutely be democratized, we should all have our own open source models, and unfortunately that means those smart glasses the guy on the bus is wearing could be undressing everyone in real time.

              There’s nothing to be done about it, and trying to do something is worse. It’s like the war on drugs. Folks who want to do it are gonna do it. Fighting it is only going to make the world worse. Unfortunately there are victims here, but societally I think we’re just going to have to get over it.

              • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
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                10 months ago

                Other than vague slippery slope fearmongering I don’t see how banning the creation and distribution of deepfake porn is going to make AI monopolized by corporations. If have your own personally trained and run AI model, you have complete control of what sort of content it’s generating. Why would you have issues with deepfake porn laws if you are not generating and hosting that content?

                It just doesn’t add up, there’s some logical leap here that seems almost on the level of conspiracy theories. As much as governments do tend to favor corporations over regular people there is nothing so far even vaguely suggesting that AI would be so profoundly restricted that only corporations could use it. In fact, what has been described of what is proposed so far does not target the technology at all, only the users who engage in this kind of bad conduct.

                But I profoundly disagree with this “nothing to be done about it”. How would fighting it be worse than letting people suffer for it? It’s not like drugs where the main person who might have issues is the user themselves, this affects unrelated vulnerable people.

                If it is identified who is making deepfake porn and where it’s being hosted, it can be taken down. You could argue that not every single responsible person will be identified, but it might still be enough to diminish the prevalence and number of victims. And to the point that the remaining ones will have to be sneaky about it, that still might lead to less harassment to the victims.

                You compare it to the war on drugs. Meanwhile I think of the rise of the automobile, with people crying that seat belts and traffic lights were ruining their freedom and “there’s nothing to be done” about people dying in car crashes.

                • curiousaur@reddthat.com
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                  10 months ago

                  If everyone could create their own, and just run it locally, explain how the laws could be enforced?

                  • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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                    10 months ago

                    Aguing that since you do a crime with a tool, outlawing the crime outlaws the tool is a bad argument. Outlawing murder doesn’t outlaw knives.

                    As far as enforcement, it may be enforced with varying degrees of success but the argument that someone may get away with the crime also isn’t a reason not to make it a crime.

                    If someone created deep fakes using locally run models, rubbed one out and then deleted everything they probably wouldn’t be caught…but largely who cares that they didn’t? It’s the harm to others that it causes that you would largely like to prevent, and if a person didn’t distribute the image at all them “getting away with it” doesn’t matter much.

                    Edit: I think the argument that existing laws already cover this is more compelling than any of the above arguments as far as why this new law shouldn’t be passed.

        • Gigasser@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Tbh, I’ve always thought about it like this, making deepfake tech illegal would be like making photoshopping faces on porn images illegal. At the end of the day the technology itself shouldn’t be regulated, the end products themselves should be though. If you Photoshop some kids face onto some nude body, you should be arrested for possession regardless if it was “real” or not. The same should go for deepfake porn exploiting children.

          However I see very little wrong with some guy photoshopping adult celeb or “friends” faces onto nude model bodies, same for those who do it with deepfake tech, just don’t distribute it.

      • wildginger
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        10 months ago

        Cant stop people from killing others with hammers unless we make hammers illegal guys

    • Darkncoldbard@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Mr. Vulpine, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this chat room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

      • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Any reason why you are quoting Adam Sandler movies at me?

        Because if you have any criticism you could at least be specific and original.

        • Darkncoldbard@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Ahhhh, fine. It’s reasonable to say that people ought to have rights over their own likeness? So if you’re walking down the street and someone’s recording you, what? You melt down over your likeness? Hide in your house for fear that someone will take a picture of you?

          • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Don’t you know? People already do have rights over their likeness and we already have laws regarding that. To some extent you are allowed to record public locations and events, and you don’t need to seek permission to every passerby. But it doesn’t mean you can record people and use their images in every location and situation.

            Not to mention, we are talking about deepfakes made to look like specific people. I don’t think you are going to accidentally pass by someone’s deepfake porn while taking selfies on the streets, so there’s not much point of bringing this up.

            • Darkncoldbard@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              So someone is gonna tell you when they use your picture/ video for their personal use?? Lol bro

              • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
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                10 months ago

                Which is why the proposed bill targets distributors.

                You talk about it as if you never seen laws that apply to the internet before.