This isn't really an AI issue. You can't use someone's likeness for commercial gain without their consent. This is well-established. It's true for actual footage. Being AI-generated changes nothing.<p>You'll see the same thing in defamation cases. Someone will no doubt use AI to create someone's likeness to say something that person finds reprehensible and whoever created that AI may try to argue it's just an AI. It won't matter then either.<p>Where this gets more interesting is if whoever created the AI gets held responsible for what people do with it. The kneejerk reaction in the tech community will be to say "no, it's just a tool" but there's such a thing in legal terms as a reckless disregard for the consequences making you culpable.
Original article:<p><a href="https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/scarlett-johansson-legal-action-ai-app-ad-likeness-1235773489/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/scarlett-johansson-leg...</a><p>From the guidelines [1]:<p>> <i>Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter.</i><p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html">https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html</a>
To me, these kinds of events support the idea that no AI-specific law is needed. AI is already illegal to use insofar as it's used to commit a crime, and it's already subject to tort law.
> the 22-second ad showed Johansson behind the scenes while filming Black Widow, where she actually says “What’s up guys? It’s Scarlett and I want you to come with me.” But then, the ad transitions away from Johansson, while an AI-generated voice meant to sound like the actress states: “It’s not limited to avatars only. You can also create images with texts and even your AI videos. I think you shouldn’t miss it.”<p>wow this is really amateur hour for whoever did that ad without permission. It's like this person never got a letter from their cable company for bittorrenting and just had no idea anyone would mind using major film studio actors/content in their for-profit ad without paying for it.<p>it's like there's a reason when you go to the gym, all the music is some piped in re-recorded version of famous songs with an unknown singer doing it, rather than the actual music.
Tom Waits sued Frito Lay for using his voice / musical stylings in ad:
<a href="https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/79648/when-tom-waits-sued-frito-lay-over-doritos-ad" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/79648/when-tom-waits-sue...</a>
Highly interested to see the result of lawsuits like this. Technically, a person's image, even a famous person's, can be sourced from the public domain and that is enough to generate an AI avatar.<p>Wonder how these AI celebrity clones will be regulated, if they are.
> Scarlett Johansson hits AI app with legal action for cloning her voice in an ad (theverge.com)<p>It is important to note that the legal action is against the company's use of her appearance rather than the capabilities of the app itself.<p>However, I wonder if voice and appearance cloning capabilities are something that would be classified as unsafe by the regulations stemming from the "Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence"?
How does this work if you just find someone who sounds exactly like her do the ad? Do you then bring the new person into court to prove they sound like her and it's their real voice?
Sounds like there is scope for a viral campaign where the actor is actually paid, but pretends not to be and threatens to sue etc.<p>Maybe someone already did that?
Haven’t seen too much discussion about how AI will democratize media production. Celebrity is a pretty significant form of inequality that weirdly spills over into things like political and social influence. If the phenomenon of media celebrity disappears, isn’t that a good thing?
If someone impersonates Scarlett Johansson or sounds a lot like her naturally is it illegal to make money from this? Why does AI have less rights than humans here?