A senior Trump advisor shared a video that seems to show an NBC reporter badmouthing Republican presidential candidates. It appears AI was used to imitate the reporter’s voice.
A senior Trump advisor shared a video that seems to show an NBC reporter badmouthing Republican presidential candidates. It appears AI was used to imitate the reporter’s voice.
This is pretty obviously humor. And it’s also very obviously protected by the 1st amendment. So many real fights out there, and NBC goes after this? Whatever.
This is a nothingburger for attention ON THE PART OF NBC, and we’re all helping.
Edit: I don’t usually mind downvotes, but I find it upsetting that so many people are downvoting this. I hope you all actually take the 30 seconds to listen to the video. It’s pretty clearly intended to be parody/humor, and, while I don’t appreciate the humor, the right to create that piece of “comedy” should probably be protected, no?
Watch the video. This is practically an Onion video if they start using AI in their video parodies. We want to make that kind of thing legally actionable? Any reasonable person watching the video will understand the end of it is intended to be parodic.
Libel, fraud, and trademark infringement are not protected by the 1st amendment.
The question would be if an average person viewing the video would know that it was fake or if they would believe that the reporter had actually said those things.
If the average person would be misled about their reporting, NBC certainly has a case against the video’s use.
I can’t create a deepfake of Donald Trump saying that he loves Hitler and plans to continue his agenda if he wins the election “for the lolz” and post it online without facing serious legal consequences, even if I am protected in doing the same with a cartoon version of him voiced by a parody impersonation.
You actually are protected to do that, assuming it’s clear to the viewer it’s being used with humorous intent to be critical of Trump. Even the current congressional legislation on this topic carves out exceptions for digital manipulation and construction for parody, satire, and criticism.
If you’ve watched the video, I’m surprised you don’t find it an obvious attempt at humor.
Parody and satire very often use impersonation to create humor, e.g. SNL. My point was that this seems very obviously parody.
Perhaps I’m wrong; and, yes, NBC could litigate this in court, but my suspicion is that the “average” viewer would easily recognize this as parody and not an actual broadcast. The swearing alone (not mentioning the clearly humorous nature of what is being said) seem an obvious attempt at humor.
If you don’t think it’s a clear attempt at humor that is eminently distinguishable from typical NBC broadcasts, that says a lot more about typical NBC broadcasts than the humor, I guess.
Parody and satire are done by someone else. Kinda like your example of SNL. It’s very very clear that when Will Ferrell was impersonating Dubya, it wasn’t actually him. When Weird Al sings about his bologna, no one actually thought it was The Knack.
This is AI, putting a live person’s voice into their own mouth, saying words they never said. That should be immediately apparent as obviously different to parody and satire.
Defending this as OK behaviour is willful ignorance and reeks of one particular political party that seems to rely on lying directly to it’s constituents as a main promotional tactic.
Willful ignorance. Lol. Ok
“I disagree with you, so you must be republican.” Uh, ok. Was that parody? 🤣
I’m a well-educated Native from a southwest tribe, and I spent weeks at Occupy camping and protesting in NYC (and have the arrest records to prove it), a month at Standing Rock (more arrests and now-healed bruises), and recently a week in WV protesting extractive industries. I’m sure you’re actively involved in movement spaces as well, so I’m not judging, but this isn’t a question of political allegiance, and that’s a silly assumption to make.
This isn’t wilful ignorance. AI parody is still “created” by someone else, it’s just a different tool being utilized here. The NOFAKES Act, which attempts to codify some of what your arguing, even carves out exceptions for digitally produced parody and satire:
“The bill includes an exception for using digital duplicates for parodies, satire, and criticism.”
The question still orbits around whether it was intentionally misleading, and, as I said, it seems to me a fairly obvious attempt at humor. Not necessarily humor I find funny, but personal taste is irrelevant here.