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UK Considers New Legal Protections Against AI Cloning Of Celebrities
- Written by Kiara Fabbri Former Tech News Writer
- Fact-Checked by Justyn Newman Former Lead Cybersecurity Editor
The UK government is exploring new legal measures to protect celebrities and public figures from having their likenesses mimicked by AI, as reported by Politico .
In a Rush? Here are the Quick Facts!
- Proposed changes could allow AI companies to use copyrighted works unless rights holders opt out.
- A new “personality right” could protect public figures from AI mimicking their likeness.
- The creative industry opposes changes, claiming they may undermine originality and copyright protection.
These potential changes come amid a larger debate over the country’s evolving copyright laws, which have drawn significant opposition from the creative industries.
Ministers are preparing to launch a consultation on proposed updates to the UK’s copyright regime. One of the key aspects of the consultation is a plan that would allow AI companies to use copyrighted works for training their models, unless the rights holders explicitly opt out, reports Politico.
This initiative is seen as a way to attract AI investment to the UK, but it has sparked a backlash from artists and other content creators who argue that it could harm their ability to control and profit from their intellectual property, as reported by Politico in an earlier article .
To address these concerns, the government is considering introducing a new “personality right.” This would grant individuals, particularly those who rely on their public image, additional legal protections against AI tools using their likenesses without permission, said Politico.
The new right would also aim to combat the growing threat of malicious deepfakes, which can generate realistic but fake images and videos of individuals. Such personality rights already exist in some other regions, including parts of the United States, says Politico.
However, the proposal is unlikely to ease the broader concerns of the creative sector, which argues that the government’s changes to copyright law could undermine originality.
Notable figures such as author Kate Mosse and musician Paul McCartney have expressed their opposition, warning that the plans could diminish the value of creative works, as reported by Politico.
Critics contend that the proposed “opt-out” model for AI training is unfair to content creators, who should be given more control over how their works are used. The sector argues that a system where content holders must explicitly “opt in” to AI training is fairer, noted Politico.
International industry bodies have also raised alarms. The Copyright Alliance, a US-based group, warned that any weakening of copyright protection in the UK could discourage both UK and US creators from investing in British creative industries, as reported by Politico.
Despite the criticism, the government insists that the consultation will explore a range of options. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy emphasized that ministers have not yet decided on the final approach, acknowledging the need to balance the interests of both AI development and the creative sectors, as reported by Politico.
While the consultation will seek feedback on these issues, many questions remain, particularly about how content holders would indicate their opposition to AI companies using their data.
Politico says that the industry group TechUK has stressed the need for a clear commercial licensing framework to ensure that AI development can proceed without stifling innovation in other sectors.
Image by Freepik
Meta Releases AI Model To Advance Virtual Agent Behavior In The Metaverse
- Written by Kiara Fabbri Former Tech News Writer
- Fact-Checked by Justyn Newman Former Lead Cybersecurity Editor
On Thursday, Meta FAIR has released several new research tools and findings aimed at advancing machine learning and artificial intelligence. These releases focus on areas such as agent development, robustness, safety, and machine learning architectures.
In a Rush? Here are the Quick Facts!
- Meta FAIR introduces research artifacts to enhance machine intelligence and improve AI development.
- Innovations include Meta Motivo for controlling virtual agents and Meta Video Seal for watermarking.
- Meta emphasizes democratizing access to advanced technologies for real-world interaction improvements.
Among the highlights are Meta Motivo, a foundation model for controlling virtual embodied agents, and Meta Video Seal, a video watermarking model designed to enhance content traceability.
Meta Video Seal builds on previous research in audio watermarking and enables the embedding of imperceptible watermarks in video content. The system is resistant to common modifications such as blurring, cropping, and compression, offering practical applications for safeguarding digital media.
Accompanying this is the Omni Seal Bench, a benchmarking platform for evaluating watermarking systems across different formats. This platform aims to foster collaboration within the research community.
Meta Motivo introduces a framework for unsupervised reinforcement learning. It uses a motion dataset to create a shared latent space for states, motions, and rewards.
The model demonstrates capabilities such as zero-shot motion tracking and goal-reaching while maintaining robustness against environmental variations like gravity and wind. These features have potential applications in virtual environments and animation.
Flow Matching, another release, provides an alternative to traditional diffusion methods for generative models. It supports various data types, including images, videos, and 3D structures, while improving computational efficiency and performance.
In the area of social reasoning, Meta Explore Theory-of-Mind presents a program-guided dataset creation method to train AI models for reasoning about beliefs and thoughts.
Initial tests indicate improvements in model performance on established benchmarks, with implications for enhancing reasoning in large language models.
Meta has also introduced Large Concept Models (LCMs), which aim to separate reasoning tasks from language representation by predicting conceptual ideas instead of individual tokens.
This approach reportedly improves tasks like summarization and multilingual processing. Additionally, the Dynamic Byte Latent Transformer eliminates the need for tokenization, offering more efficient processing of long sequences and rare text.
Other releases include Meta Memory Layers, which help scale the incorporation of factual knowledge into models, and tools for evaluating responsible image generation.
The integration of AI agents with physical-like bodies marks a significant shift in the metaverse, enabling more realistic interactions and dynamic virtual experiences.
However, these advancements could blur boundaries between the virtual and real worlds, raising questions about privacy, accountability, and the societal impact of increasingly lifelike virtual agents.
