The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists called for deepfakes to be made illegal after the technology was used recently to generate explicit images of Taylor Swift and a new comedy special that featured the late George Carlin.
“The sexually explicit, A.I.-generated images depicting Taylor Swift are upsetting, harmful, and deeply concerning,” SAG-AFTRA said in a statement Friday.
“The development and dissemination of fake images — especially those of a lewd nature — without someone’s consent must be made illegal.”
The statement comes in response to sexually-explicit deepfakes of Taylor Swift that went viral Wednesday on X, amassing over 27 million views and more than 260,000 likes in 19 hours before the account that posted the images was suspended.
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On Friday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella slammed the images as “alarming and terrible,” and said the company has to act fast to combat AI generated nude pictures.
Earlier this month, artificial intelligence was also used to resurrect the late stand-up comedian George Carlin with a new AI-generated special that Carlin’s daughter decried as a “rape & pillage” of her father’s art, and which prompted a lawsuit this week from Carlin’s estate.
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