California’s 5 new AI laws tackle election deepfakes and actor clones

California’s new AI laws make it illegal to use deepfakes in elections and to make AI copies of actors without their permission. These laws set high standards for both politics and the entertainment business.

Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom has recently put his signature on some of the most restrictive laws in the United States addressing the sphere of artificial intelligence. Three of these rules make it illegal for AI deepfakes to be used to change elections. Two others say that Hollywood studios can’t make an AI copy of an actor’s body or voice without their permission.

Governor Newsom’s office said in a press release Tuesday that California is home to most of the world’s top AI companies and is working to use these game-changing technologies to help solve important problems while also studying the risks they pose.

AB 2655 is a new law in California that says big online platforms like Facebook and X have to get rid of or name election-related AI deepfakes and set up ways for people to report them. Candidates for office and elected officials can ask for injunctive relief if a big online site doesn’t follow the act.

Another rule, 2355, says that political ads made by AI must be made public. Trump might not be able to get away with posting AI deepfakes of Taylor Swift supporting him on Truth Social from now on (she backed Kamala Harris after all). The FCC wants to make the same kind of disclosure rule for the whole country, and they have already made it illegal to make robocalls with voices made by AI.

The biggest film and television actors union in the country, SAG-AFTRA, pushed for the last two AI laws that were signed on Tuesday. They set new standards for California’s media industry. AB 2602 says that companies must get permission from an actor before using AI to make a copy of their voice or likeness. Also, AB 1836 says that companies can’t make digital copies of actors who have died without permission from their estates. The latest Alien, Star Wars, and other films used copies that were approved by the law.

Governor Newsom is currently thinking about 38 bills that have to do with AI. One of these is SB 1047, which is very controversial and was sent to him by the California Senate to be signed into law. Newsom may have tipped his hat when he talked to Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, on Tuesday at the Dreamforce 2024 conference. He agreed with people who are against SB 1047 that the bill might make the open source AI community less active.