Author of Michigan's deepfake bill wants to also ban AI porn
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Michigan lawmakers are saying they want to prevent voters from being duped by "deepfakes" and protect residents who may find themselves targeted by online harassment.
Why it matters: After passing laws to protect election workers against threats, Democratic state lawmakers in Michigan and across the country say the next step is protecting voters from fraud, misinformation and forgery.
Driving the news: State Rep. Penelope Tsernoglou (D-East Lansing) is the lead sponsor of a package introduced last fall that would require campaigns to add visible disclaimers on political "deepfakes" and advertisements created with artificial intelligence.
- Tsernoglou tells Axios that she had been working on more legislation to protect against deepfake porn even before the explicit AI-generated images of Taylor Swift went viral last month.
What they're saying: "We've been drafting a bill, putting regulations on any type of explicit images created by AI, and it should be ready within the next few weeks for us to introduce," Tsernoglou tells Axios.
- "The timing of that is definitely coinciding with things like the Taylor Swift incident," Tsernoglou says. "We're hoping that [bill] will come soon and at least in Michigan we'll be able to regulate and try to prevent it from happening in the future."
Zoom out: Nearly all of the country's state legislatures currently in session are considering AI-related bills and nearly half of those bills address deepfakes, according to software industry group BSA.
Yes, but: Governors, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, have not made AI a priority in their 2024 state of the state addresses.