More than 400 artificial intelligence (AI) experts, artists and politicians signed the letter, which urged governments to pass laws criminalizing deepfake child pornography and establishing criminal penalties for those who knowingly create or facilitate the spread of harmful deepfakes.
The letter also suggested software developers and distributors be required to prevent their products from creating harmful deepfakes and be held liable if their measures are too easily circumvented.
Deepfakes — which the letter describes as “non-consensual and grossly misleading AI-generated voices, images, or videos, that a reasonable person would mistake as real” — pose growing risks as AI technology has become more widely available.
“Deepfakes are a huge threat to human society
and are already causing growing harm to individuals, communities, and the functioning of democracy,” said Andrew Critch, an AI researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, and lead author of the letter, in a statement.
“We need immediate action to combat the proliferation of deepfakes, and my colleagues and I created this letter as a way for people around the world to show their support for law-making efforts to stop deepfakes,” he added.
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com.
