The United States Senate passed bipartisan legislation yesterday that would allow individuals to sue over non-consensual intimate depictions of them that were generated by artificial intelligence.
The Bill’s passage comes in the wake of intense criticism of Elon Musk-owned X, formerly Twitter, for allowing the Grok AI chatbot to generate sexualised images of real people, including children.
The bipartisan Bill would also allow for suits for possession or production of deepfake porn if there was also intent to disclose the images.
Bill sponsor Illinois Senator Richard J. Durbin said it would give victims of explicit deep-fakes "the tools to fight back against those who would exploit them".
Durbin expressed concern that even after reporting exposed the use of Grok to create nonconsensual deepfakes, X did not prevent the bot from creating the "exploitive images". After the backlash, X limited the capability to edit images to paid subscribers.
The legislation was critical to hold X accountable, Durbin said. ... "This legislation says if they are guilty of such reckless misconduct, that they can be sued for it and held civilly liable for the damages." — TCA
