More than 16,000 people have signed SAG-AFTRA’s open letter demanding Congress pass the revived NO FAKES Act, an anti-deepfake bill that would give individuals control over how their name and likeness are used.
Deepfakes have been a constant presence in the AI age as large-language models have made generating depictions of actors, singers and other celebrities much more accessible to the public. The performers union’s letter warns that deepfakes proliferating online risk putting “victims, performers, creators and consumers at risk and in danger” over unauthorized use cases in “scams, exploitation, false endorsements and the replacement of human performance itself.”
The signatories include creators, actors, students, parents and members of the general public. A SAG-AFTRA spokesperson did not respond to an immediate request for a list of names.
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“Unchecked AI can ruin lives,” SAG-AFTRA president Sean Astin said in a statement. “Americans are demanding that the Federal Government take sensible action. The NO FAKES Act would establish a fundamental protection to control their own voice and likeness.”
“Rarely does legislation earn this kind of cross-sector support. The NO FAKES Act represents common sense, long-overdue federal protection, and Congress now has both the opportunity and the obligation to pass it,” added Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the union’s national executive director and chief negotiator.
The latest version of the NO FAKES Act was introduced last month by a bipartisan group of lawmakers after the last version stalled out last year in a Senate committee, coming a year after Congress passed the Take It Down Act that banned the publication of nonconsensual intimate images, both user-made and AI-generated.
The group of lawmakers backing the bill includes Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Chris Coons (D-De.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), while House sponsors include Reps. Maria Salazar (R-Fla.) and Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Penn.). Some of the bill’s public advocates include OpenAI, the AFL-CIO, YouTube, IBM, and trade organizations including the Motion Picture Association, the Recording Industry Association of America, the Recording Academy and the National Association of Broadcasters.
The bill is scheduled to be addressed during Thursday’s Senate Judiciary Committee meeting.