Tech and music industry leaders testified about the dangers of deepfakes made with artificial intelligence on Wednesday, urging lawmakers to pass legislation that would protect people's voices and likenesses from being replicated without consent, while allowing use of the tech responsibly.
Speaking to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee's panel on privacy, technology, and the law, executives from YouTube and Recording Industry Association of America as well as country music singer Martina McBride, championed the bipartisan No Fakes Act, which seeks to create federal protections for artists' voice, likeness and image from unauthorized AI-generated deepfakes.
The group argued that Americans across the board — whether teenagers or high-profile music artists — were at risk of their likenesses being misused. The legislation, reintroduced in the senate last month, would combat deepfakes by holding individuals or companies liable if they produced an unauthorized digital replica of an individual in a performance.
''AI technology is amazing and can be used for so many wonderful purposes,'' McBride told the panel. ''But like all great technologies, it can also be abused, in this case by stealing people's voices and likenesses to scare and defraud families, manipulate the images of young girls in ways that are shocking to say the least, impersonate government officials, or make phony recordings posing as artists like me.''
The No Fakes Act would also hold platforms liable if they knew a replica was not authorized, while excluding certain digital replicas from coverage based on First Amendment protections. It would also establish a notice-and-takedown process so victims of unauthorized deepfakes ''have an avenue to get online platforms to take down the deepfake,'' the bill's sponsors said last month.
The bill would address the use of non-consensual digital replicas in audiovisual works, images, or sound recordings.
Nearly 400 artists, actors and performers have signed on in support of the legislation, according to the Human Artistry Campaign, which advocates for responsible AI use, including LeAnn Rimes, Bette Midler, Missy Elliott, Scarlett Johansson and Sean Astin.
The testimony comes two days after President Donald Trump signed the Take It Down Act, bipartisan legislation that enacted stricter penalties for the distribution of non-consensual intimate imagery, sometimes called ''revenge porn,'' as well as deepfakes created by AI.
