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AI Government

Scarlett Johansson Calls For Deepfake Ban After AI Video Goes Viral (people.com) 75

Posted by BeauHD from the enough-is-enough dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from People: Scarlett Johansson is urging U.S. legislators to place limits on artificial intelligence as an unauthorized, A.I.-generated video of her and other Jewish celebrities opposing Kanye West goes viral. The video, which has been circulating on social media, opens with an A.I. version of Johansson, 40, wearing a white T-shirt featuring a hand and its middle finger extended. In the center of the hand is a Star of David. The name "Kanye" is written underneath the hand.

The video contains A.I.-generated versions of over a dozen other Jewish celebrities, including Drake, Jerry Seinfeld, Steven Spielberg, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Black, Mila Kunis and Lenny Kravitz. It ends with an A.I. Adam Sandler flipping his finger at the camera as the Jewish folk song "Hava Nagila" plays. The video ends with "Enough is Enough" and "Join the Fight Against Antisemitism." In a statement to PEOPLE, Johansson denounced what she called "the misuse of A.I., no matter what its messaging." Johansson continued: "It has been brought to my attention by family members and friends, that an A.I.-generated video featuring my likeness, in response to an antisemitic view, has been circulating online and gaining traction. I am a Jewish woman who has no tolerance for antisemitism or hate speech of any kind. But I also firmly believe that the potential for hate speech multiplied by A.I. is a far greater threat than any one person who takes accountability for it. We must call out the misuse of A.I., no matter its messaging, or we risk losing a hold on reality."

"I have unfortunately been a very public victim of A.I.," she added, "but the truth is that the threat of A.I. affects each and every one of us. There is a 1000-foot wave coming regarding A.I. that several progressive countries, not including the United States, have responded to in a responsible manner. It is terrifying that the U.S. government is paralyzed when it comes to passing legislation that protects all of its citizens against the imminent dangers of A.I."

The statement concluded, "I urge the U.S. government to make the passing of legislation limiting A.I. use a top priority; it is a bipartisan issue that enormously affects the immediate future of humanity at large."

Johansson has been outspoken about AI technology since its rise in popularity. Last year, she called out OpenAI for using an AI personal assistant voice that the actress claims sounds uncannily similar to her own.

Scarlett Johansson Calls For Deepfake Ban After AI Video Goes Viral More | Reply

Scarlett Johansson Calls For Deepfake Ban After AI Video Goes Viral

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  • amazing (Score:2, Insightful)

    by commodore73 ( 967172 )
    People think that regulations will be able to control this? Weird.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by ElderOfPsion ( 10042134 )

      Effective regulation aims to align private behavior with the public interest.

    • Re:amazing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by abulafia ( 7826 ) on Wednesday February 12, 2025 @06:24PM (#65162445)
      Regulation won't stop it, but it clearly signals "this is bad behavior", and it gives people (who can afford lawyers) a stick with which to hit back.

      • Re:amazing (Score:5, Interesting)

        by msauve ( 701917 ) on Wednesday February 12, 2025 @06:35PM (#65162469)
        Don't celebs already "own" their own likenesses? Seems they already have that stick.

        • I haven't read TFA or anything but I would imagine the goal is to criminalize the behavior. Civil penalties don't mean jack really if you can't collect enough to make it worth it to bother. Deepfakes are getting cheaper all the time, especially if you do the processing on someone else's computers.

        • Don't celebs already "own" their own likenesses? Seems they already have that stick.

          They do. But they’re also public figures and celebrities. Which means legally that stick can be called Parody and celebrities know where they can shove it.

          The rough life of being a multi-millionaire in a world of suffering, falls on deaf ears. 99% of those with first world problems don’t give a shit about celebrity-grade spoiled world problems.

          Im also curious as to ScarJos stance on AI regulation before Trump won. Is her concern genuine or political?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by allo ( 1728082 )

        Anything the regulation would ban, that is allowed now? It's only virtue signalling, all things you could ban are already disallowed without even mentioning AI.

      • What is the relevance of “a.i." here even? It either is or isn't legal to create a fake video with someone's likeness like this. People want it to be illegal for it to be generated by an “a.i.”, which seems to be the new term for “artificial neural network” nowadays, but not if a human being doctors it personally?

        It seems to me the issue is simply impersonation.

    • Rules to discourage deepfake creation and dissemination seems like a good aspiration but enforcement will be challenging. Try to fix one issue and create others.

    • Re: amazing (Score:4, Insightful)

      by i_ate_god ( 899684 ) on Wednesday February 12, 2025 @06:59PM (#65162511)

      Laws can't stop it, but it can certainly mitigate the effects

      • Honestly, I don't see that happening, or it would already be happening (there has only been the Reuters case, IIUC). If it could happen, it would completely overwhelm all judicial systems worldwide, because these things can spew crap faster than the entire world population can even consume it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by taustin ( 171655 )

      You abuse the word "think." There is no thinking involved. Only knees jerking, and mouths spewing nonsense.

      • I have been saying for some time that we shouldn't anthropomorphize the machines by using terms like "thinking" in relation to "AI". But over time, I have realized that thinking is not actually a typical human trait.
    • I'm a little surprised that her whole statement is about AI deepfakes and she glosses over the rabid antisemitism. Not sure what she means by "takes accountability". Has Kanye taken accountability for what he said? It's my impression that he has simply doubled down multiple times. I would have expected the reverse. "Not OK to deepfake me, but 100% F$&* you Kanye...etc., etc."
    • She is too young to know about the Striesand effect

    • Currently, the general crowd of people can't WAIT for the next pile of social dilemma to arrive so that they can put their opinion on it in order to get the social approval that they desire. Until that becomes no more important than the weather, then we'll have this problem.

      • It's "interesting" to consider that the people running the USA may be largely controlled by the dopamine bursts they get from social media. Especially since most social media no longer has a "dislike" option.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by jonadab ( 583620 )
      Eh. Slander and libel are already legally actionable.

      (Although, if the video is obviously parody or satire, then that's another matter. Not having seen the video, I have no idea whether that is the case. The summary doesn't suggest it, but that's not entirely conclusive.)
      • I guess in the end its the taxpayers that pay (or in the US, borrow), if the rich clog the courts with this crap, because the poor certainly won't. It will not stop anything. It might restrict who does it, but that will have unintended consequences as well.

  • She wants to control and collect profits for any use of her appearance or voice. I get it. It's also unrealistic.

    Technology has allowed actors to make ridiculous amounts of money doing work once and then getting a cut of sales forever. Now technology is taking that away.

    Be glad you lived mostly in the golden era of performing, Scarlett, because actors are on the verge of going back to relatively economically worthless and being the playthings of patrons.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      I would have said that less nicely, but yes, exactly.

      They like it when the money's rolling in.

    • Re:Get it / Don't Get it (Score:4, Interesting)

      by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Wednesday February 12, 2025 @07:34PM (#65162573)
      I'd argue it's unrealistic from a completely different angle. Hollywood is already full of budget A-list celebrity lookalikes and stand-ins. What prevents an AI from creating a digital equivalent of a celebrity impersonator and using that for their video? Is it any different from the local radio station that has some impersonate Arnold, Trump, or anyone else sufficiently well known to make a bumper or something else for their station? I can even recall a porn actress hired for a film who had enough of a resemblance to former VP candidates Sarah Palin back in the day.

      What if I'm a celebrity impersonator and sell the rights to my impersonation to be used by an AI company? Even if I'm inclined to agree that a person does have a right to own their appearance, likeness, etc. there's nothing stopping imitators, and so much of celebrity persona is merely a rehash of prior personas anyway, in other words hardly unique.

      I don't think the studios even need existing celebrities. They can create new ones who never existed and aren't based on any particular person in the first place. Some of these will be more successful than others for whatever reason, and companies will eventually be able to A/B test them before releasing a final product to really refine their perfect celebrity. The company never has to worry about their digital creation having the wrong opinions (unless it turns out that it's actually profitable to stir up drama and they create it deliberately) or saying something that might hurt sales. They won't develop drug habits, sexually assault anyone, or commit other crimes that may tarnish their brand. Really the only downside from Hollywood's perspective is that some fat, ugly producer can't fuck them for a guarantee of landing a role. Maybe they'll eventually work that out as well though.

      • They can create new ones who never existed and aren't based on any particular person in the first place.

        Sure, just like we can send a probe to another galaxy.

        On the bright side, if they iterate fast enough, they may create that AI person more quickly than Voyager 1 will arrive at another galaxy.

    • Re:Get it / Don't Get it (Score:4, Informative)

      by Brooklynoid ( 656617 ) on Wednesday February 12, 2025 @09:05PM (#65162733)
      "Technology has allowed actors to make ridiculous amounts of money doing work once and then getting a cut of sales forever"

      It's called "royalties". What does technology have to do with it? It's a practice that's been around since the most sophisticated piece of accounting technology was the pencil.

      • Prior to movies, actors had to perform on a stage to get paid. After movies, they could perform once and get paid every time the movie was shown while they did nothing.

        Now technology is breaking the scarcity of the image - it's no longer under their control and people no longer need to see a particular movie. We're not far off from movies being entirely CGI and not being able to tell.

        Accounting has nothing to do with it, it's all about control and they're losing it.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        "Technology has allowed actors to make ridiculous amounts of money doing work once and then getting a cut of sales forever"

        It's called "royalties". What does technology have to do with it? It's a practice that's been around since the most sophisticated piece of accounting technology was the pencil.

        Television and film actors typically don't get royalties, hence they negotiate as much as they can up front. Even for music performers where royalties are the norm, royalties are two fifths of sweet fuck all.

        Only the writers get decent royalties which means the artists who don't write their own work get pennies, if that, from radio and streaming. Performers have to make money from... erm... performing, as they get to keep a large amount of ticket and merch sales, minus the royalties they need to pay to t

  • What's to stop (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    anyone, within the privacy of their own home, from making these videos?

    • If the video stays within the privacy of the home, Scarlett probably doesn't care.

      If it's publicly distributed, presumably Scarlett's lawyers would try stopping it.

  • AI is really not my concern here (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    This guy is not well. I know the whole new US administration is composed of of similar fascists nutjobs (though mostly white, is it why he is not in it ?). But still this guy is off his rocker, this is not going to end well.

    • In 2019 you would have been so far up RFKs Jrs ass. Your statism is showing.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        you blame people for being too complicated to fit inside the stereotypes you project to feel safe, and when people say things too complex for you to parse you complain they're not catering to your needs.

        tell me more about being a consumer who has never actually produced anything.

  • Good God I hope she never learns about Civitai.

  • Attacking reality is the point (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Wednesday February 12, 2025 @08:36PM (#65162687) Homepage
    Propaganda of lies is a very quaint 20th century phenomenon. The new propaganda is simply to fill all the channels of communication with so much contradictory information that the people no longer know what is real and what isn't. AI is a tool to create all this contradictory information in bulk, but the knowledge that some content is actually a deepfake is also a way to make everyone doubt all information. This leads to disengagement from politics, which is the entire point. In the future, a face-to-face conversation will be the only way to know that you're dealing with a real person.

  • First it was cryptography, now it's AI.
    People think it is possible to outlaw math.

    This isn't the first time Johasson's been the victim of an A.I. fake.

    Is it actually her complaining, or one of her AI deepfakes? How can you tell?

    Welcome to the future!
    It came about 20 years sooner than I expected.

  • Hold on... Drake is Jewish?

  • AI is a tool.
    The crime is fake impersonation with bad intentions. Using technology or using other method doesn't change the crime.

    And that crime already exist. And because it's a crime already, why a ban will stop anything?

    You don't need an explicit AI legislation, done to force by law that AI would be controlled by a small number of powerful people.

    Doing that you are creating a lot worse future for all of us. AI would be probably become too powerful and being under the control of a minority is one of the w

  • Still a fine looking lady...
  • Yes Facebook and Instagram Should Ban AI/Deepfake submissions, It's annoying, A lot of Mistakes and Manipulation. If they want to create a separate site for it, fine, but Don't wanna see it. It Misleads people and hurts celebrities that get their images manipulated and that's wrong.

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