[HN Gopher] X blocks Taylor Swift searches after fake AI videos ...
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       X blocks Taylor Swift searches after fake AI videos go viral
        
       Author : jmsflknr
       Score  : 45 points
       Date   : 2024-01-28 14:22 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.ft.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.ft.com)
        
       | exo-pla-net wrote:
       | https://archive.is/9ErBf
        
       | 1B05H1N wrote:
       | It matters now because it's easy to do?
        
         | samstave wrote:
         | It matters because she is famous?
         | 
         | If this was just some random person, this would be a blip on
         | nightly news - similar to the revengeporn website stuff.
         | 
         | It must be really interesting though, to be _the_ person in all
         | of Human History who is at the creation of a Humanity 's
         | awareness that controlling AI versions of our likeness is going
         | to be an impactful and meaningful area in legal precedent for
         | here to evermore.
         | 
         | Swift, IMO, should feel a certain sense of weird-luckiness? to
         | literally the Human where we begin the discussion of protecting
         | ourselves from AI fakes....
         | 
         | My question is, then, if Swift can be entirely in control of
         | how her likeness is used in any context, then what about any
         | random person's likeness being scanned, documented and analyzed
         | by millions of camera surveillance feeds every day?
         | 
         | Its a weird tangent, but if Swift creates the foundation for
         | (what would this be, case law? Precedent? Dont know what legal
         | terms define this) - what impact could it have for people
         | defending the even capture of their likeness by systems that
         | use that likeness to develop a catalog of your biometric-
         | behavors to track you, recreate you, catalog you, define you,
         | and then have business systems use that data to make decisions
         | upon or against you?
         | 
         | If I own all aspects of my biologics, then do I have _ay_
         | agency over how data captured, and AI-ified, amy be used?
        
           | Mountain_Skies wrote:
           | Hollywood is already struggling with how to handle these
           | types of issues, with actors wanting to maintain control of
           | their likeness and studios wanting to be able to own those at
           | the very least as a "work for hire" property in the context
           | of a movie character. Not that this is completely new.
           | Crispen Glover sued over the producers of 'Back to the Future
           | II' using another actor to give the impression of him playing
           | the George McFly character instead of recasting the character
           | or writing around the absence of the character. IIRC, Glover
           | ended up winning.
        
           | foogazi wrote:
           | > If this was just some random person, this would be a blip
           | on nightly news - similar to the revengeporn website stuff.
           | 
           | Still a crime regardless of the victims notoriety
        
           | techdragon wrote:
           | She is rich, and famous, and can both afford to fight
           | legally, and sway public opinion to her side ( which is is
           | the ethically sound side, it's hard to argue it's totally
           | fine for anyone to make fake porn _and share it_ of you
           | without permission... doubly so given we allow people to
           | exercise likeness rights )
           | 
           | So she has the social and economic power to stand up for her
           | rights, and enforce her existing likeness rights in the face
           | of some widespread AI imagery that is violating those
           | rights...
           | 
           | I'm not expecting precedent, just another sad example of how
           | the rich and powerful have rights the rest of us don't,
           | because you have to _assert_ those rights which requires
           | lawyers which requires money and so... the status quo
           | continues as it exists today... "nothing to see here, move
           | along"... sadly.
        
             | samstave wrote:
             | Full agreement.
             | 
             | That's why I think this is really important for everyone -
             | and not just about fake sex tapes - but in how much we
             | control our presence in the world, specifically at the
             | intersection of our Digital existence and our Biological
             | existence.
             | 
             | And this is imperative to get right, given that our Digital
             | selves are effectively immortal from this point forward -
             | even though they will ultimate just be boiled down to some
             | coordinate in a vector graph for eternity.
        
               | techdragon wrote:
               | I think you expect too much. The end result is that she
               | assets rights she already had yesterday, rights she had
               | years ago before DALL-E or Stable Diffusion even
               | existed... there's nothing new here... just existing
               | power structures that give the rich and famous some
               | measure of control over their likeness due to it being
               | part of their personal brands and thus their l business
               | interests... while the non rich and famous have no right
               | to privacy in public and short the limited protections
               | that have been implemented in some circumstances against
               | revenge porn, no right to protect their likeness being
               | misused... from people taking pictures in public, to AI
               | generated images... they do not have protections against
               | this kind of thing as no act has been perpetuated against
               | them unless it crosses a tiny minority of laws against
               | things like commercial imagery rights which is why models
               | have to sign a release... but that won't protect from
               | generated imagery given away for free.
        
             | Teever wrote:
             | Ironically I think that her fame has a chance of being her
             | undoing on this subject and we'll end up with a situation
             | where the famous have to endure certain kinds of sexual
             | content being produced that features their likeness while
             | the little people do not.
             | 
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hustler_Magazine_v._Falwell
        
           | crote wrote:
           | > Swift, IMO, should feel a certain sense of weird-luckiness?
           | to literally the Human where we begin the discussion of
           | protecting ourselves from AI fakes....
           | 
           | Did you miss the part about the images containing her being
           | raped and assaulted? This isn't a deepfake ripoff concert or
           | something.
           | 
           | This woman is being actively stalked in real life by multiple
           | people. She literally needs 24/7 security to protect her from
           | weirdos. I highly doubt she's going to care even the
           | _slightest_ about being part of the  "discussion", and the
           | fact that you'd even _suggest_ she should  "feel lucky" shows
           | an incredible lack of empathy on your part.
        
             | samstave wrote:
             | Sorry, actually I wasnt really following what was happening
             | in this case, mostly because I don't care about anything at
             | all related to Taylor Swift - but I do care about how we
             | navigate the laws of AI likeness ownership.
             | 
             | Her personal circumstances suck - and it was insensitive
             | for me to not mentino that, but I did so out of ignorance,
             | because I dont care about taylor swift - not because I am
             | lacking empathy.
             | 
             | SO, apologies for that. I stand my my point, and I hope
             | this gets Swiftly resolved in a manner that beneficially
             | covers all.
        
         | danhon wrote:
         | It mattered before it was easy to do. This has been brought up
         | before, but leadership barreled ahead anyway.
        
           | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
           | Would it have been possible to pull this off when it wasn't
           | easy to do? I can't put my finger on it but being easy
           | changes things. It takes very few bad actors to have a big
           | impact.
        
         | mlrtime wrote:
         | It matters only because AI is new/hot topic. AI+TS is the only
         | reason this is news as this has been happening for a long time.
         | 
         | TS needs to protect her image as it's worth a lot of money.
         | Doesn't matter if it's AI, Photoshop or some drawing. The same
         | as any other Trademark owner, they have to protect it to risk
         | losing it.
         | 
         | Nobody is claiming this will stop AI or stop future scenarios,
         | that doesn't mean that TS shouldn't also agressively protect
         | her image.
        
         | addicted wrote:
         | It's always mattered. People have been trying hard to get
         | social media companies and govt officials to pay attention.
         | 
         | Because Swift is famous and because AI is involved they (and
         | places like HN) are finally paying attention.
        
       | kotaKat wrote:
       | I assume this is why Nitter got slammed and is on the verge of
       | breaking.
       | 
       | https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/issues/1154
        
         | techdragon wrote:
         | I don't see the connection.
        
           | JoeMattiello wrote:
           | People use nitter for embedding tweets where twitter has been
           | broken for ages such as in telegram.
           | 
           | Personally I use fixupx dot com
        
       | hasty_pudding wrote:
       | Meanwhile it's like every other thread on 4chan /b.
       | 
       | if you ever want to know what truly censorship resistant sites
       | are, just post AI pictures of Taylor Swift.
        
         | rc_mob wrote:
         | i gave up on that place when 4chan started to worship
         | authoritarian trump
        
           | hasty_pudding wrote:
           | I gave up on politics in general. Now I find it strange that
           | people care so strongly about things they have such little
           | control over. lol
           | 
           | People on 4chan are motivated by doing things for the lulz
           | more than any ideology..and you have to admit Trump
           | presidency would provide the most lulz.
        
             | netsharc wrote:
             | I have a feeling the OG 4chan-ners were doing it for the
             | "lulz", but when it became well-known as a "site where the
             | users supports Trump", all the bleeding-heart Trump
             | supporters (including the actually deplorable e.g. the
             | white supremacists) actually started frequenting the
             | site...
             | 
             | I wonder how most of the media's inability to see jokes as
             | what they are contributed to their misreporting...
        
         | f38zf5vdt wrote:
         | The DALLE3 stuff on 4chan is 10000% worse than nudes. One of my
         | friends showed me a picture of TS putting jews in ovens in a
         | concentration camp. Microsoft is the one spouting out about the
         | need for "generative image AI safety", meanwhile they have to
         | be the worst offender given some of the stuff I've seen out of
         | Bing.
        
           | vdaea wrote:
           | It's important that we have censorship so images of ungood
           | things can't be generated.
        
             | twoWhlsGud wrote:
             | Figure out how to stop the social media robots from
             | monetizing the destruction of civil society and you might
             | be able to keep something resembling free speech.
             | Otherwise, the future looks like China or Russia (massive
             | kleptostates using the robots to keep control instead).
             | It's not clear there's a way for democracies to survive the
             | disappearance of the peaceful maintenance of reality.
        
               | 0cVlTeIATBs wrote:
               | If by "monetizing the destruction of civil society" you
               | mean making money from posting celebrity nudes on the
               | internet maybe you'll be glad to learn the people doing
               | it are doing it for free.
        
       | TheLoafOfBread wrote:
       | Everyone talking in defense of Taylor Swift up to the White House
       | has created massive Streisand effect. Yet AI porn is here for few
       | years at least.
        
         | Shawnj2 wrote:
         | AI porn trained off of a dataset of people who are fine being
         | in an AI porn dataset vs. AI porn of celebrities who
         | understandably go to great lengths to protect their image
         | rights are different categories.
        
         | gizmo686 wrote:
         | This is not about Taylor Swift. If you want to fight against
         | non consensual AI porn, you need someone to be the face of it.
         | Swift is a good candidate because:
         | 
         | A) She comes with a lot of free PR, that you would have to work
         | for if you wanted to build up a token victim from nothing and
         | 
         | B) She is already a massivly well known public figure. She has
         | money, a platform, a PR team; she will be fine. Heck, she
         | probably already had photoshopped poen of her floating around
         | the internet for years.
         | 
         | Swift will be absolutely fine with being made the face of this.
         | Your random Jane Doe would not.
        
           | Teever wrote:
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hustler_Magazine_v._Falwell
           | 
           | You're right that it's not about her but wrong that she's a
           | good candidate.
        
           | _heimdall wrote:
           | Taylor Swift also isn't one to shy away from a public moral
           | stand. She picked a fight with streaming services and her
           | former label. This seems like one I could see her stepping in
           | to take a public stand on.
        
           | greenhexagon wrote:
           | | If you want to fight against non consensual AI porn, you
           | need someone to be the face of it
           | 
           | Isn't this just an emotionally charged way of suggesting
           | people fight against artistic freedom, freedom of speech,
           | etc?
           | 
           | I have literally zero concern about someone making AI porn
           | that looks like me (or my spouse, family, celebrities,
           | politicians, etc). People have already had photoshop and
           | before that imaginations. It's maybe a little weird, icky or
           | uncomfortable to think about, but that's a small price to pay
           | for living in a free liberal democracy.
           | 
           | I'm far more concerned that this will give powerful people
           | another tool to crack down on journalists, artists,
           | activists, documentary filmmakers, etc. Or even just any
           | independent creative who attempts to publish work outside of
           | one of the major copyright cartel corporations.
        
       | RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
       | It is interesting to contrast this reaction with widespread
       | blocking and calling for laws with the reaction to Kanye West's
       | Famous video which featured a wax model of a naked Taylor Swift
       | in bed with him.
       | 
       | https://www.robertreeveslaw.com/blog/famous-video-kanye/
       | 
       | There is almost an elitism that things are ok as long as someone
       | famous does them but if the common people do things, then there
       | is outrage and a desire to involve the law against them.
        
         | thih9 wrote:
         | True, that wasn't ok either.
         | 
         | At the same time this instance seems more dangerous, due to the
         | obvious - scale, availability, technology advancements in an
         | unregulated field, also the level of explicit content.
         | 
         | I see no elitism. If Kanye distributed explicit AI deepfake,
         | there would be similar outrage. If a "common person" made a wax
         | model of a celebrity and recorded a music video, they would be
         | labeled a weirdo at most.
        
         | kkarakk wrote:
         | As andy warhol said - "Art is what you can get away with".
         | 
         | Kanye gets a (heavily frowned upon)pass because there is an
         | inherent artistic and cultural commentary sensibility to the
         | video.
        
       | kkarakk wrote:
       | There are sex workers who already use AI tech to produce images
       | of themselves trained on their pictures - for eg,
       | https://www.susu.bot/ (NSFW)
       | 
       | This is likely the (near) future of this tech, you can't control
       | it only monetise it so that the ease of use is more convenient
       | than spending a couple of hours downloading publicly available
       | images and training models yourself.
       | 
       | (The industrial revolution and it's consequences hit the world of
       | celebrity...)
        
       | Khaine wrote:
       | Fake Celebrity porn has been a thing for the longest time. In the
       | 90s people used to airbrush the face/head of a celebrity onto the
       | body of a nude model. Prior to that people used their
       | imaginations.
       | 
       | What has changed since then? I guess technology now makes this
       | easier, has fakes like this become more socially unacceptable?
        
         | dharmab wrote:
         | The change is now it takes about 5 seconds and a nice-ish
         | computer instead of hours of skilled work.
        
           | _heimdall wrote:
           | So is the problem that fake porn is being created, or the
           | ease in which it can be created?
           | 
           | The latter almost makes it sound like fake celebrity porn is
           | more of an art form that should be appreciated and guarded
           | from cheap knock offs.
        
             | ender341341 wrote:
             | > or the ease in which it can be created?
             | 
             | It's the volume of it, which comes from the ease.
        
             | gqcwwjtg wrote:
             | Kanye West did a music video with wax figures of nude
             | celebrities including Taylor Swift and that had barely any
             | backlash. Is it because he's known as an artist? The price
             | of the recreation? The way it's distributed? Is creating
             | fake images of someone nude in a somewhat sexual context
             | meaningfully different from creating images of them
             | actively engaging in sex acts?
             | 
             | It's almost like the problem is nobody claiming it as art
             | they created.
        
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