A bipartisan group of US senators introduced a bill Tuesday that would criminalize the spread of nonconsensual, sexualized images generated by artificial intelligence. The measure comes in direct response to the proliferation of pornographic AI-made images of Taylor Swift on X, formerly Twitter, in recent days.
The measure would allow victims depicted in nude or sexually explicit “digital forgeries” to seek a civil penalty against “individuals who produced or possessed the forgery with intent to distribute it” or anyone who received the material knowing it was not made with consent. Dick Durbin, the US Senate majority whip, and senators Lindsey Graham, Amy Klobuchar and Josh Hawley are behind the bill, known as the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits Act of 2024, or the “Defiance Act.”
To be clear, this has been happening to Swift for years. She’s been very public on the problem, and pays IIRC up to a million per year for a firm to get fakes taken down.
Okay, then why is it getting attention now though?
I’m sure it’s gotten a lot easier - I wouldn’t be surprised if there was even a 100x increase after all the AI image generation websites went mainstream.