Speaker 1: There's another article here from Billboard dot com. New Senate
bill could protect artists from AI deep fakes. And this
is of course part of our ongoing discussions about AI.
We discussed it a lot on the show, but also
the music industry is having an ongoing discussion about it.
And this is called the No Fakes Act, first introduced
as a draft bill last October, aims to provide federal
protection on one's voice and likeness for the first time.
And this is something you know something about from your
own experience as a state legislator.
Speaker 2: Yes, I've worked on this issue specifically.
Speaker 1: It says here. A bipartisan group of US Senators introduced
the highly anticipated No Fakes Act on July thirty one,
which aims to protect artists and others from AI deep
fakes and other non consensual replicas of their voices, images,
and likeness. If passed, the legislation would create federal intellectual
property for detections for the so called right of publicity
for the first time, which restricts how someone's name, image,
likeness in voice can be used without consent. Currently, such
rights are only protected at the state level, leading to
a patchwork of different rules across the country. Unlike many
existing state loss systems, the federal right, Yes, the federal
right that the No Fakes Act would create would not
expire at death and could be controlled by a person's
heirs for seventy years after their passing. The balance personal
publicity rights, I'm sorry, to balance personal publicity rights and
the First Amendment right to free speech. The No Fakes
Act also includes specific carve outs for replicas used in
news coverage, parody, historical works, or criticism. Now, yes, yeah,
tell us about your experience with the bill about JD. Salinger.
Speaker 3: Right, So this in the articles one hundred percent correct.
The laws are patchwork across the nation. Here in New Hampshire,
as an artist, you have the right to protect your
image and your likeness until you die. The moment that
you did, you have no protections anymore, nor does your family.
Nobody can control that or take ownership over your likeness.
It becomes fair game. So what happened in New Hampshire
is JD. Salinger's family has tried to protect his image.
You know, Catcher in the Rye, famous American author. And
there's a place, it's like a store or something that's
near where the Salinger family. It has been in New
Hampshire and they put JD. Salinger's face on toilet paper
something wasn't too happy about that.
Speaker 2: I don't blame him, but.
Speaker 3: They were putting dad's face on things that weren't very
respectable and they weren't happy about it, and they wanted
to have control over their dad's image. But New Hampshire
law didn't allow it. So the effort was to change
the law to allow that to happen, because it does
exist in many, many, many other states. California, it's a
hundred years, so it's that patchwork. So what I say years,
I'm talking about when you die, so you are you
are a public persona you Matt Connorton on this show.
In theory, you would have the ability to control your
image up until the point that you die. In some states,
when you die, whoever is your bequeathed or you're next
to kin has the right to continue that control over
your image, your likeness, your voice for a certain amount
of time. In legislature, it's usually been around lifetime, thinking
basically like we want your kids and your grandkids to
be able to control your image. But after that it's
been enough. But still allowing for people to be criticized
or be satired, so narrowing the intent of the bill
of that control like it is in other states. We
got a lot of pushback trying to do this, like
this was a huge fight, a bigger fight than I
ever thought it would be. And I did manage to
get it out of committee and I almost got it
passed into the law, but the Republicans on the House
side would not have it and trashed it because I
was in a supermajority at the time as a Republican.
Mind you, they wanted industries to be able to utilize
people however they wanted to. And my argument was, if
you look at the New Hampshire State House, it's across
the street from an adult store. So I would give
the example of you know, you die and the next
day your kids see your face on an adult toy
in the adult store being advertised in the window.
Speaker 2: How do you feel about that? Should that be allowed?
Speaker 3: Should a pub person's image belong ownership of that image
belong to the next of ken? I think it should.
I believe it should. You're a public figure, you're making
money off of your image, you have created a brand
of you, and you should be able to becreath that
brand to your next to kin. In my opinion, this
law gets into that because now it has to. Now
we're adding this whole new animal into the mixture of
AI and the ability to mimic people, to pretend to
be people, to convince people that that really is that person.
These deep fakes are pretty bad, Like you really can't
necessarily tell the difference between one person or another. You
could take somebody's image that you love and means the
world to you and have them say the most horrific
things and have no control over that, or we allow
that to be controlled. I think you should be able
to do that, and that's what I advocated for, and
that's what I fought for. Unfortunately, the bill died thanks
to House Republicans because the Senate was ready to pass it.
The Salinger family is very respected in New Hampshire and
we usually take pride in our in our in our
in the successes that come out of our state. J. D.
Salander is one of the most amazing American writers that
is known throughout our country and around the world for
or his Fourth Catcher in the Ryan his works. So
you see what I'm saying about but.
Speaker 1: It gets so these things do get complicated though, because
he do. Because so this happened a few months ago
and we never got to it on the show. But
do you remember the Scarlett Johansson thing. Yes, it was
in the news. Yes, I found an article from the
Hollywood Reporter. Again, this is from a few months ago.
But Scarlett Johansson's AI legal threat set stage for actors
battle with tech giants. So here's what this was about. Artists.
This is a little bit of a side street, but
it's relevant. So artists were first to sue. Then authors
hit generative artificial intelligence companies with a valley of lawsuits,
followed by publications. As battle lines over the use of
AI tools in Hollywood are being drawn, actors maybe the
next group of creators to open another front in what
would be an industry defining legal battle against AI firms
over the use of copyrighted works in personal data to
power their human mimicking chat bots. On Monday, and again
this is from the end of May, Scarlett Johansson threatened
legal action against open ai, which is who created chat gpt,
for allegedly copying and limiting I'm sorry imitating her voice
after she refused to license it to the company. According
to the actress, Open Ai asks her to be one
of the voices called Sky for its newest AI system.
She declined, though she said that didn't stop chief executive
Sam Altman.
Speaker 3: And that's part of it right there, like for example,
sports heroes in games and making sure that they have
control over that imaging and that money in a game. Yeah,
so that's where this legislation.
Speaker 1: But here's here's the problem though. Well, okay, so this
is what she said in her statement, and then I'm
gonna play Devil's advocate as I like to do because
this because I when I first heard this, I was
very skeptical that she had a case. Okay, so she
wrote in a statement, quote, when I heard the released demo,
I was shocked, angered, and in disbelief that mister Altman
would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to
mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not
tell the difference. Unquote. Okay, here's the problem. So from
her perspective, so she feels they asked her, she said no,
So they just generated a voice that sounded.
Speaker 2: Well, we'll go to court and deal with it in court,
but we got it.
Speaker 1: But here's the problem. What did they Does Scarlett Johanson
have such a distinct voice? Is there no one else
who sounds like her? I?
Speaker 3: Ah, yeah, come on, now, come on, we want you
to be our voice.
Speaker 2: We want you to be a voice. No no, no
no no, So we make one up that sounds just
like you.
Speaker 1: Come on if I if so, if I go and
hear this, am I going to say? Oh, that's Scarlett Johansson?
Speaker 3: I mean according to her, she's saying yes, she's saying
that news to her. According to her, So who are
these news outlets and did they really feel that way
and contact her?
Speaker 2: If that is true, then she absolutely has a case.
Speaker 1: I'm very skeptical.
Speaker 3: The thing is, even even the Motion Picture Association is
getting in behind this bill.
Speaker 2: And I do want to say one thing about the bill.
Speaker 3: Senator Blackburn is on it, who's a Republican, and Senator
Clovisha and Senator they So this bill is bipartisan in
effort to try and protect artists, athletes, people who have
a public persona from being turned into some kind of
an AI.
Speaker 1: Now, and you know, I'll always advocate on the side
of artists at the end of the day. But I'm
just saying though from a pra again from a practice
and pragmatic standpoint. So if somebody sounds like you, now
you can go and get suit film.
Speaker 3: If this suit, if this actually sounds a lot like her,
or sounds like her period after them turn after she
turned them down, that's that's not coincidental.
Speaker 2: That's not a coincidence. That's intention. But they're gonna get.
Speaker 3: What they wanted because they figure tied up in court,
they get away with it.
Speaker 2: But who they get away with it?
Speaker 1: But who's to say.
Speaker 3: Unless she gets a stay of some kind and some
kind of emergency injunction to stop them from using it.
They're getting to utilize it while you're going through court.
Speaker 1: But so this company though, so because that conversation was
had with Scarlett Johansson, now this company can never ever
use any voice that might.
Speaker 2: Sound like yeah, I'm gonna say yes.
Speaker 1: See that to me sounds.
Speaker 3: If it sounds just like her, like you can't tell
the difference. No, they shouldn't be able to.
Speaker 1: There's not another actor somewhere who has a voice like her.
What is so distinct about her voice?
Speaker 3: If it sounds just like her and you can't tell
the difference. After they went to her trying to get
usage and she said, no, I don't know. We have
to put some kind of limitations on AI or it
will run rampant. Where is your line, Where is your
line in the stand that you're protecting the artist?
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I do think there's I do think there's
the uh. And this is why I bring this up.
I do think there's the risk of abuse in the
other direction.
Speaker 3: Man, there is, which is why this is why this Yeah,
and it's why these kinds of laws are difficult to
pass because you do have to narrow the scope because
you still have to allow for perspective, sorry, for protected speech.
You've got to allow for There's got to be you know,
we have to be able to have sat tire of people.
Speaker 2: We have to be able to.
Speaker 1: Well that that's the right thing about That's a big thing.
Speaker 2: I'm worried about is part of But that's been done.
It's done in many places.
Speaker 1: Because satirical works are generally protected and that's already and
I'm worried about that no longer.
Speaker 3: There's a lot, but it's already been on the books
for forever, especially in California, there's laws on the books
that protect artists but allow for satire. California protects your
image for one hundred years after your death. Some states
are seventy five. New Hampshire is no time. New Hampshire
is you're dead, You're done. Your family doesn't get to
control it. You show up in the middle of some
adult stores window too bad, too sad, don't show your kids.
Speaker 2: I don't like that.
Speaker 3: I think people should be able to control their image,
their persona, and when they die that shouldn't just die
with them if they you know you're you are a
commodity of your own, and you've established this commodity. You
get to bequeath that to whoever you wish, and they
get to contain that ownership for however many years the
law allows. But like our state doesn't. Our state gives
no protection at awe when death happens.
Speaker 2: This law is going way, This law has to happen.
This stuff has to happen.
Speaker 3: AI is exponentially growing on a daily basis. Let's face it,
technology is amazing. It grows every day. There's good and
bad about it. The ability to mimic someone's image, likeness, voice,
there's a lot of danger involved in that. There's a
lot of nasty, underground, criminal things that can be done
with that, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I worry.
Speaker 3: About that somebody puts a video of somebody making it
look like they've committed a crime, that person goes to jail.
This kind of technology can be so horrifically abused that
if we don't put safeguards now, it's going to be
too late when it's out of the box.
Speaker 1: For all you know, I might not really be here.
I could be a deep fake.
Speaker 2: Well I know, because I'm here.
Speaker 1: Oh that's true.
Speaker 2: Listeners could be listening to two deep pakes.
Speaker 1: They could be listening to an AI generated version of
the show.
Speaker 2: Maybe we're not here, maybe we're in Aruba.
Speaker 1: I do want to do that sometime. I think it'd
be fun make an AI generated version of the show,
just to see what it comes up with. They did
that once on The Howard Stern Show. It's pretty well
the conversation between Howard and Robin and the AI version
that they did. It was funny because it was so
it was so it was like, you know, Howard's like
asking Robin, Robin, how was your weekend? And Robin's like
mine was good, Howard, how was you know, It's just
like a conversation they would never have, but it was
like it was the best that the AI could come
up with.
Speaker 3: There is an organization called their Human Artistry Campaign that's
out there that's actually trying to work on these issues
to protect artists. We're talking about When you talk about
artis you talk about everybody. We're talking about music, actors, painters, everyone.
If we I'm serious, Like, so, I want to know
from you, Devil's Advocate, where's your line where is it
that we are protecting? Where do you put that line
to protect the artists?
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know. I mean, that's that's the thing
we're kind of That's what's so fascinating about the subject
to me is it's it's complicated. It's it's complex, and
we're kind of trying to find our way through it. Now.
I do tend to be I might be lenient on
a lot of this, though I might have an internal
bias because so you know, I'm a co host on
Retrospect and Radio with Polic on Friday nights, and one
of the things that one of the uh, if you've
never heard the show, every week Paul picks a different subject,
and one of the subjects that we've done a few
times that Paul has shows in his plagiarism where he'll
play a song and then yeah, and then it's a
song where there was some sort of perhaps someone said, hey,
they you stole my song. I'm going to sue you,
and there was litigation or the threat of litigation or
just accusations of plagiarism and so forth. Led Zeppelin, by
the way, the most plagiaristic band ever. But when we're
when Paul plays these examples for us, I'm usually the
one in the room who says not guilty. I'm like,
I'm the most lenient when it comes to these accusations
of plagiarism, because I'm the guy who says, yeah, I
know that song sounds like this other song, but that's
because it's using a chord progression that is very common
in rock music and shows up in a lot of songs.
I'm the most lenient one. So maybe maybe because I
tend to maybe maybe I have an internal bias that's
making me say, hey, let's be a little bit careful
about what we assume that's different is copying something else?
Speaker 3: I want to challenge you on that. That's different because
you're comparing what's coming out of a human mind to
a computer pretending to be somebody else.
Speaker 1: But what is the same is this notion of copying,
this notion of hearing something or reading the data of something. However,
you want to think about it the way a large
learning model works machine learning. The part that's similar is
taking something and replicating it in some.
Speaker 3: Way, true, but without the human element. And that's that's
a big difference. There's the difference between the human being
and the computer.
Speaker 1: Well, but it depends on the situation, right, I mean,
if I take a if I take somebody else's song
and I just basically copy it and I barely change it,
and I've plagiarized it, that's actually worse.
Speaker 2: Than that plagiarism not a deep fake, right.
Speaker 1: No, But I'm just saying, though, that's actually worse than
if I type an AI prompt and I say make
a song that kind of sounds like this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, that is worse because it's a direct right copyright.
Who's the Who's the rapper that did that? With David
Bowie's song Queen under Pressure? Who's stole from under pressure.
Vanilla Vanilla ice, that's what it was. Yeah, yep, but
see that's that's plagiarism. That's stealing somebody's work.
Speaker 1: Well that's not technically, it's not plagiarism. It's it's a
it's ample, it's an unclear sample. Yeah, because he didn't
ask permission and then he got held over a balcony
by Suge Knight. It's a whole thing. Geez, we can
do a whole show about vanilla Ice. What a fascinating man.
Speaker 2: This is true. Yes, but you don't want to anger anyone.
Speaker 1: No, that's true. We don't want Sugar Knight to come
and hurt me.
Speaker 3: Hang you over or we do have a balcony. Yes,
he could hang you over a balcony by your ankles.
Speaker 2: That would be terrible. Well, it's it's a very I mean,
I support the effort. I think this bill should pass.
I think it should be long.
Speaker 3: I think there should be protections against We have to start.
If we don't, we're already kind of late to the
late to the Gamia.
Speaker 2: We need these.
Speaker 3: Laws on the books like yesterday. Because technology grows and
leaps and bounds by the day, AI especially, we don't
we need we need this stuff now right, not before
before it gets too far out of the bag. But
you know, I'm sorry, but I still I have to
disagree with you on Johansson issue. She was approached, she
was asked, they wanted her, they courted her, she said no.
Then they created something that sounded just like her. Yeah,
I don't, I don't see.
Speaker 1: I don't even know, though, I would have to hear
it and make my own determination to really have an
opinion a hundred, which I have not. It's like with
the George Carlin thing. Remember all these guys who made
an AI version of a George Carlin album, a new
George Carlin album. Yeah, And I remember I played a
little bit of it on the show that and and
well I ended up listening to the entire hour, and
I thought it was good. I actually thought it was funny.
And George Carland's one of my all time favorite Duck comedians,
of course. But but I remember saying to you, Jesse
was with us on the show that day, and I
remember saying, my observation was, you know, yeah, it sounds
a lot like him, but not exactly. And if you
were to play this for me, and I'm sure it's
still on YouTube. If you don't know what we're talking about,
just look up George Carlin AI. You'll find it and
it's actually funny, like the jokes are good. But I'm
skeptical that it's all AI generated because some of those
jokes don't sound like they could have been generated by AI.
They're actually too clever. But but I remember saying to
you and Jesse that if you, if you just played
this for me and said to me, didn't tell me
anything about it, and just said, Matt, who is this comedian?
Do you recognize this? I might say it reminds me
of George Carlin, or it kind of sounds like George Carlin.
I would not say, oh, that's George Carlin.
Speaker 2: Well guess, because you know he's dead.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, But I'm just saying. I'm saying, if if,
if you, if you.
Speaker 2: Just played that for me, you would have it out
right away and.
Speaker 1: Tell me anything about it. I I probably would have
said it reminds me of George Carlin, but I would
not have said that's George Carlin because it didn't sound
enough like him to me. The AI version.
Speaker 2: That's one example.
Speaker 1: It is, It's just one example. It's anecdotal, but I'm
just saying I would have to hear the the Scarlett
Johanson which is not which is not available. They they
took it down, avoided a lawsuit, and all of that.
That's all been saying.
Speaker 2: So you in favor or opposed to the legislation.
Speaker 1: I'm generally in favor of protecting artists. I don't know
enough about exactly what the legislation is to really have
a firm opinion, but I'm generally in favor of protecting artists.
At the end of the day, I will always advocate
on behalf of artists. Having said that, I'm also always
worried about abuse, I will say, and frivolous lawsuits and
all of that.
Speaker 3: There are a whole host of organizations that agree with you,
that are representing artists. Organizations like the Nashville Songwriters' Association
or the Production Music Association, the Recording Academy are all
joining together in support of this bipartisan legislation, which is
nice to see. I just hope that the sun doesn't
sit on it forever and that they actually do get
it passed into.
Speaker 2: Law sooner rather than later.
Speaker 3: To protect artists is not artists, culture, art everything needs
to be protected from AI. It really does. If we
don't get these laws in place now, it's just going
to be too late. And I really do think there
needs to be laws, and especially in regards to deep fakes,
perhaps