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AI United States

President Biden Calls for Ban on AI Voice Impersonations (variety.com) 145

President Biden included a nod to a rising issue in the entertainment and tech industries during his State of the Union address Thursday evening, calling for a ban on AI voice impersonations. From a report: "Here at home, I have signed over 400 bipartisan bills. There's more to pass my unity agenda," President Biden said, beginning to list off a series of different proposals that he hopes to address if elected to a second term. "Strengthen penalties on fentanyl trafficking, pass bipartisan privacy legislation to protect our children online, harness the promise of AI to protect us from peril, ban AI voice impersonations and more."

The president did not elaborate on the types of guardrails or penalties that he would plan to institute around the rising technology, or if it would extend to the entertainment industry. AI was a peak concern for SAG-AFTRA during the actors union's negotiations with and strike against the major studios last year.

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President Biden Calls for Ban on AI Voice Impersonations

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  • As always... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by thtrgremlin ( 1158085 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @10:38AM (#64299967) Journal
    ... an exception will be made for big business that made sufficient political donations. Tell me you serious think this rule would ever apply to Hollywood.
    • I'm sure it would be enacted as a ban on using AI generated voice and video in the commission of fraud, election interference, voter suppression, etc. There likely will be a carve-out for parody and creative works with proper labeling of being AI generated.

      You know, just like most other legal restrictions on speech and creative works that already exist.

  • by bondsbw ( 888959 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @10:41AM (#64299981)

    Laws and regulations against fraudulent impersonation can be strengthened. Campaigns and business advertisements come to mind. AI may be an immediate source of concern, but any fraudulent impersonation can have the same impact.

    I do not believe banning AI impersonation entirely would work, and it would need loopholes for fair use like parody.

    • I do not believe banning AI impersonation entirely would work, and it would need loopholes for fair use like parody.

      I'm guessing such a ban would immediately run into winnable lawsuits on 1st Amendment grounds.

      Free Speech is pretty broad in what it covers these days.

      • The 1st amendment does not give free license to defraud people.

        The 1st amendment does not give free license to suppress voter turnout through fraudulent AI-generated voice recordings.

        The 1st amendment has long-recognized exceptions in jurisprudence for criminal conduct and public safety. This would be implemented in the same way, and would get the same legal results.

        • No argument that fraud is a crime.

          But a blanket ban on AI Impersonation generation would likely fail the 1st amendment test and it appears the blanket ban is what Biden is calling for, at least from my reading of the article.

          • I think a lot of people are letting "ban" do a lot of heavy lifting of assumption.

            Legally, firearms are "banned" from being used to rob people. And if you use a firearm while robbing someone and you get caught, you get an "enhancement" on your sentencing for using a firearm in the commission of a crime.

            I would imagine that an AI impersonation "ban" would be implemented in the same way. If you use AI impersonation to commit fraud, you get an extra 5 years on top of whatever you already would have gotten fo

    • by mysidia ( 191772 )

      Honestly.. We should give People a right to their Voice similar to Trademarks and prohibit Anyone else exploiting a Confusingly-similar computer-generated voice simulation To cause confusion about the Identity of the speaker, without a License, as a Civil violation.

      And it should become a Felony when the confusingly-similar Simulated voice is used to generate or Induce a business engagement under false pretense, or a false record, Application, Approval/Authorization/Request, etc in the false name

    • Or fair use for me owning an answering system that impersonates myself.
  • by LinuxRulz ( 678500 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @10:42AM (#64299985)

    There are already laws criminalizing impersonation. Does AI change any of that apart from the ease of breaking existing laws?

    It just feels like tapping into the AI hype while changing nothing.

    • image useage rights may need better laws SAG-AFTRA was able to get parts for UNION jobs.

    • by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @10:53AM (#64300031)

      We've already seen Trump mixing with AI-generated black people as a campaign tool. Voice impersonations for false-flag political robo call campaigns will follow.

      What is happening here isn't a new crime, it's a new tool making the crime trivially easy and that is making it enough of a risk for people to suddenly care.

      So no, no new law required, but maybe a review of enforcement and penalties to ensure the resources to do something about it are available, and the sanctions severe. For EVERYONE. That includes political campaigns where 'an over-enthusiatic low-level volunteer made a mistake in judgement'.

    • Let me put your argument another way, with a good helping of reductio ad absurdum:

      There are already laws criminalizing murder and willful destruction of property. Does using a nuclear bomb change any of that apart from the ease of mass murder and destruction?

      Laws have to keep up with technology, and our laws have always had higher penalties for various "flavors" of infraction.

      A little less hyperbolic: there is a criminal law difference in both what is charged, and the penalties applied, for many things. I

    • by SirSlud ( 67381 )

      Yes, because the means to achieving a end and the intent in the committing of an act are both factors very much taken into account in classifying a criminal act, the severity thereof, and punishments suitable if found guilty of committing them.

  • by caseih ( 160668 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @10:49AM (#64300007)

    Complete banning sounds nice in theory. The idea is to prevent ever-increasing fraud and criminal behavior that prey on people. Or maybe protect voice actors from having their voices ripped off by greedy production companies. I don't actually see how "banning" AI for voice impersonations would actually stop criminals from doing it. But that's never stopped a politician before.

    And there are other uses of AI voice impersonation that are good and even desirable. There are numerous health conditions that can rob a person of their voice, often permanently. Having an AI that can generate their voice would be a powerful tool for helping these people retain their identity and ability to interact with friends, family, and others. This was possible before but AI makes it easier. Not allowing this sort of AI use to assist people would be tragic indeed.

    • It doesn't matter what they ban. The genie is out of the bottle. Any criminal with sufficient skill and knowledge can build their own AI with fairly modest hardware. They can make whatever fucking rules they want (they are increasingly irrelevant). It's like banning indoor marijuana grows, as long as people have seeds, dirt, and water, they are going to thumb their nose at the idiotic impotent RULES! [youtube.com]
      • It's like banning indoor marijuana grows

        .

        No. It's more like having laws that allow for sentencing enhancements for using a firearm in the commission of a crime.

        Use AI to defraud people? Have an extra 10 years in the crowbar hotel.

    • Murder is illegal too and that doesn't stop murder; but it discourages many murders...

      Bans never completely stop anything; they discourage some of it by creating consequences after the fact. It's always reactionary unless it's a thought crime; even those punish AFTER you've been caught thinking about doing something.

      People are jumping to extremes the laws are never simple and carve out loopholes and exceptions; then the courts carve out some more; including legislating from the bench as SCOTUS is big on doi

      • i dont believe for a minute that murder being illegal is the thing stopping someone who has the balls to do it
        • by SirSlud ( 67381 )

          so you believe that there would be the same number of murders if there was no legal consequence to committing it?

          that's ... quite stupid

          • so you believe that there are less drugs because we made drugs illegal? This logic can be used for anything illegal..


            People willing to break the laws do not regard them at. That they exist has no function in curbing that behavior. Keep in mind also that the average person is not a murderer.


            Most civilized people aren't just play acting civilized because The Gubmint tells them to. There are some people who believe their individual rights do come before everyone else and they will enforce it at the b
      • " Murder is illegal too and that doesn't stop murder "

        The number of mass shootings in this country tend to disagree with that statement.

        It's akin to expecting a " No Guns " sign on the front of a Bank to deter bank robberies . . . . . .

        People who are going to break the laws don't really care about the laws they're breaking.

  • by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @10:51AM (#64300015)

    people should own the rights to their own voice and no EULA are allowed to give that right.
    Also you can not give up that right as part an job unless it's very clearly spelled out with an end date / can be voided by ether side at any time.

  • Yeah, because... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by B0mb1tll ( 8539805 )

    bans work! Sorry, but bad actors and criminals aren't going to care if AI voice impersonations are banned!

  • by necro81 ( 917438 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @11:03AM (#64300079) Journal
    During the NH primary, there were robocalls using an AI-generated fake Biden voice, telling Democrats to not bother voting.

    NPR [npr.org], NYTimes [nytimes.com], APnews [apnews.com], NBC [nbcnews.com], The Guardian [theguardian.com].

    I expect that when the deepfake Trumps start springing up, the other side will get on board.
    • by reanjr ( 588767 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @12:04PM (#64300305) Homepage

      But that's already against the law. Not only is it illegal to impersonate someone, most states have additional laws around election interference that would be triggered. No need to futilely attempt to ban impersonators.

      • by necro81 ( 917438 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @12:17PM (#64300351) Journal
        The same (illegal) act can be prosecuted at different levels. For instance: say I killed someone. If it was brutal and premeditated, that's going to be murder in the first degree. If it was because I'm a doctor and rendered terrible medical care, that could be negligent homicide. If I ran into them with my car because they were crossing a highway, at night, in a blizzard, it may not be prosecuted at all. Usually it'd be a state prosecution but, depending who I killed and where, it may be federally prosecuted.

        Likewise with this: ordinary state-level impersonation and/or election interference may be an insufficient statute; i.e., not commensurate with the harm caused, or vague in these circumstances. A federal law regarding this particular behavior may either be more appropriate, or have more substantial penalties, than existing statutes. IANAL, so I don't really know.
      • Not only is it illegal to impersonate someone...

        Tell that to all of the Elvis impersonators out there. There's so many of them in Vegas that the city requires them to have licenses for it.
    • When deepfake Trumps show up they will have to do a double-take and seriously wonder if it's not just another political suicide that has zero impact and which has already been handled by denying as fake, like they've been doing literally since day one when they were lying about clearly documented crowd sizes. We may not even know about the problem until they make an issue out of it... like Trump bragging about the video of him not realizing it's fake. That is very possible to happen, think about it.

  • Unnecessary (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The Cat ( 19816 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @11:12AM (#64300105)

    Fraud is already illegal. Impersonating another person is already illegal. Appropriation of another person's likeness is already illegal. Copyright and trademark infringement are already illegal.

    Pretty much everything else is covered by the First Amendment and the freedom to contract provided, of course, Congress has the legal authority to ban audio, which they don't.

    • Re:Unnecessary (Score:4, Interesting)

      by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @12:49PM (#64300451) Journal

      You seem to think that they want to try to legislatively put the genie back in the bottle, and they know that can't happen.

      Yes, all of those things are already illegal. So is assault, robbery, etc. However, if you use a firearm while committing those crimes, there is MUCH heavier sentencing under the "enhancement" of using a firearm in the commission of a crime.

      Why would this be any different than that long-established legal precedent?

  • Really? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Surak_Prime ( 160061 ) on Friday March 08, 2024 @11:49AM (#64300237)

    Because I have a recording of him saying that he *doesn't* want them banned. ;)

  • Sorry, but this is WAY down on the list of priorities in the world today.

  • Why do politicians insist on wasting our money arguing for unconstitutional laws?

    • by whitroth ( 9367 )

      In what conceivable way is faking someone's voice free speech, and not fraud, punishable by law?

  • Everything not compulsory must be prohibited.

  • "Those things are so darn hard to peel," he declared.
  • Most politicians are would-be totalitarian dictators who mask every new power grab as a promise to make you "safer".

    The United States Constitution is very short, very explicit, and says that any power not listed within it as belonging to the federal government is left to the states and to the citizens. To further clarify this idea, the founders tacked-on a "Bill of Rights" listing ten specific things the government was really REALLY not allowed to mess with.

    Nevertheless, you will find politicians in BOTH pa

  • we have ample evidence that locking up drug mules and street level dealers and users has no impact in reducing drug use or imports. The reason there is such a large amount of illegal drugs coming in is because there is an enormous demand. We must look at why there is such a large demand in the USA and the World for these strong drugs.
  • Piecemeal bans are a horrible approach. If we simply owned our likenesses (video, audio, fingerprints, retina, ...) and our PII and turned the notion that "the guy holding the camera owns the picture" upside down then we would all be in control. We could demand payment, we could take ownership of ourselves wherever it mattered. We need to update our pre-industrial notions and adapt our thinking about who owns a likeness to meet what is occurring in the digital age.
  • Or maybe Stephen Hawking. I don't think I'll need much AI for that.
  • Bummer. These really are entertaining in a strange way.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

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