Meaningful AI regulations are finally on their way, with a new proposed law from the US Senate that could make it illegal to remove the watermarks on content generated by AI.
The potential for generative AI to cause serious problems, particularly during an election year, is undeniable. That’s why watermarks on AI-generative content are so important, since they allow users to understand when something is clearly fake.
Fortunately, legislative bodies have begun taking this kind of threat seriously, protecting AI watermarks with laws that make their removal illegal.
Bipartisan Law Could Ban AI Watermark Removal
A new bipartisan bill from the US Senate, dubbed the Content Origin Protection and Integrity from Edited and Deepfaked Media Act (COPIED ACT), posits a wide range of measures that aim to regulate generative AI technology.
One of the main points of the bill is to make a clear distinction between real content and AI-generative content with a watermarking process that will not only effectively label this content, but also make it illegal to tamper with.
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“Artificial intelligence has given bad actors the ability to create deepfakes of every individual, including those in the creative community, to imitate their likeness without their consent and profit off of counterfeit content. The COPIED Act takes an important step to better defend common targets like artists and performers against deepfakes and other inauthentic content.” – Marsha Blackburn, US Senator from Tennessee
Considering the increasing number of scams that use celebrity likeness to sell products, steal data, and generally make the online world a worse place to be, this kind of law is very much a welcomed change to the lawless nature of the technology in the last few years.
What Is the COPIED Act?
The COPIED Act is a bipartisan bill championed by Maria Cantwell (D-Washington), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee), and Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico) that aims to combat the growing problem of deepfakes amid the explosion of generative AI technology.
In addition to banning the removal of watermarks from AI-generated content, the new bill would enact a wide range of other regulations on the technology. Here are some of the measures that the law says it would establish:
- Create transparency standards
- Allow people to sue violators
- Put creators in charge of content
The bill already has some serious endorsements from organizations around the country, including SAG-AFTRA, the National Music Publishers’ Association, News/Media Alliance, the National Association of Broadcasters, and Public Citizen, among others.
The Dangers of AI Deepfakes
This kind of law may not seem necessary to some. After all, AI image generators are just fun tools for goofy pictures of dogs and professional headshots, right? Well, not exactly.
In the last few years, scammers have taken advantage of the improved performance of deepfake technology to do a lot of harm to people around the world. Mr. Beast and Taylor Swift are two examples of celebrities whose likenesses were used to shill fake products, steal user data, and simply scam unaware individuals online.
While watermarks will hopefully become standard for this kind of content, this law is still very much in its infancy. As a result, you may want to learn how to spot AI content before you too end up the victim of these unsettling scams.
