Any advertisements in New York that feature artificial intelligence-generated people in place of actors will now be violating state law if they don’t clearly label that they have used a “synthetic performer.”
The law, signed in December by Gov. Kathy Hochul, went into effect Tuesday. Her office is calling it a “first-in-the-nation law” that will boost transparency at a time when it says AI generated performers are popping up across all forms of media, including on social platforms and in digital advertising.
Synthetic performers are defined under state law as “digitally-created media that appear as a real person.” The law applies to ads in any medium.
“In New York, we are setting the rules of the road instead of letting AI run the show,” Hochul, a Democrat, said in a statement. The “simple, honest disclosure” required by the law “protects consumers, respects our creative workforce and keeps New York at the forefront of responsible innovation,” she said.
Ads that don’t “conspicuously disclose” that they have used a synthetic performer will be subject to a penalty of $1,000 for a first violation and $5,000 for any further violations.
There are specific carve outs listed in the law to exempt ads for movies, television shows, streaming content, video games and other works that feature synthetic performers in the entire work. It also doesn’t apply to audio advertisements or ads where AI is solely used for language translation.
A $1000 fine is like pennies… How much will it cost to hire a whole cast of performers, vs paying the AI tax? This is a ridiculous performative bullshit law, that even still carves out exceptions for movies and other media. Fuck off with this shit. Do more.
Not like it’s any more or less representative of reality than pre-ai ads.
I’d be an alcoholic if alcohol ads were how things really worked.
I’d also be an alcoholic if alcohol ads were how things really worked. I am one now, but I still would be also.
The 4As, as the organization is better known, said in one blog post that it would hurt advertisers by “injecting compliance uncertainty into the advertising process, burdening brands (and their agencies) who advertise in New York and undermining creative and technological innovation.”
Yeah no it won’t. The only uncertainty is whether it’s worth alienating customers to save a few bucks on performers, now that you can’t get away with it any more.
Will they even save money? Once the techlords start charging what they actually need to, I’m not sure they will.
That said, the idea of hurting ‘brands’ and their ad agencies gave me a little bit of a chub if I’m honest.
They shouldn’t be allowed to call AI-generated content “performers” at all.
This is my only qualm with this. AI slop is not made by “synthetic performers”. We shouldn’t be elevating it with that wording, which sounds like it’s trying to give agency to the slop.
My only complaint about this is that the fine looks too low, unless it’s getting applied each separate time the ad appears somewhere.
Apply it for each frame they’re rendered in.
Another complaint is that enforcement might be difficult. It will be up to the state to prove that an advertiser used AI-generated performers in their ad.
In some cases that will be obvious, but in other cases it might be difficult for anyone to even notice.
They should have to provide a list of performers. For the ads to be published.
Well, now you need someone whose job it is just to check the lists for every advertiser … maybe a whole team of people if you’re going to actually follow up on each one to ensure that the people listed are real people and actually are the people shown in the ads.
Maybe this team is paid by a tax on AI companies
It is a problem they generate, so they should pay to sort it out.
You’d think it’d be pretty simple to disprove it’s a.i., though.
So glad to see the tide shifting against AI.
It won’t go away, but hopefully it’ll stop getting shoved down everyone’s throats.
The synths are coming for your acting jobs
I can’t lie to you about your chances, but… you have my sympathies.
Synthetic performers are defined under state law as “digitally-created media that appear as a real person.” The law applies to ads in any medium.
Ok, but what about other kinds of a.i. generated performers, like animated ones? I reckon anything a.i. generated should be labelled as such.
I think the biggest concern with this bill is not knowing whether it’s real people or not. Cartoon characters are not usually mistaken for real people.
I get that. It just seems arbitrarily limited to me. And voice actors are real people too.
I suppose that depends on the goal behind the labeling. If the main goal is to call out when AI-generated content was used in lieu of paying actors and animation artists, then yes, they should also be forced to disclose when voice-over and non-realistic animated characters were AI generated.
If, however, the goal is to simply inform consumers that the person they’re looking at on the screen is not a real human, then I don’t think those things are a big concern.
It’s not really clear from the story what the intended goal is.
I think this is good. People will still watch it anyway, the worst are liars who use AI to make something seem real that isn’t. I don’t think anyone should be using AI to make a performer that looks extremely realistic.
This is to ensure that a 5% fee is collected for a retirement village to be provided for the synthetic performers, once they age out of the game.
