How the AI age affects your ‘likeness’
The everyday ‘non-public’ personality doesn’t ordinarily think about their likeness as having intrinsic value.
Sure, you know to protect your passport or license image. You may have established that you have a ‘good side’ for selfies and family photos.
You never think about the possibility that someone (or something) might be able to use other aspects of your likeness for ill-gotten gain. Perhaps for relatively harmless laughs and likes on social media. Or worse, for harmful extortion through the spectrum of criminal activity.
“I do believe that the name, image, likeness for an individual is a fundamental right — that any individual controls his or her name, image and likeness”
- Oliver Luck
Your name is registered at birth. Your likeness isn’t. How could it? Your likeness has not yet been fully formed. Later in life, if you have the means and foresight, you might find cause to trademark your likeness or obtain personality rights (right of publicity). Certainly those who make a living from their image understand the need for this provision in law.
Having just watched the 2023 movie ‘Air’, it was fascinating to learn something about the power of leveraging likeness; as was the case with the Jordan family and Nike. That is one truly positive story about the use of likeness.
On the negative side, we sometimes see in the news that defamation cases are brought to court when a public figure has had their reputation tarnished in a public light. Maybe a misleading headline. Or an unauthorised biography. More recently, a spoof TikTok or Twitter account. Sometimes a tenuous ‘artistic expression’ without permission?
In any case, successful prosecution usually comes down to having the will and means to clear your name. Although laws exist around the concept of ‘passing off’, where someone misrepresents your products or services as theirs, there are no ‘likeness police’ out there checking and validating the authenticity of images and audio about real human beings.
Your individual likeness is precious.
I read a couple of stories this morning (one about CarynAI and another on the King’s coronation afterparty in an alternate universe), and was again unpleasantly surprised by the rapid emergence of ethically questionable use-cases harnessing latest developments in generative AI and deepfake technology.
We’re looking logically at a current state where oil paintings can be brought to life, or where a person can willingly make a copy of themselves to interact on their behalf for financial gain. Even Royalty is subject to photorealistic caricature. It seems innocent, especially if done with intent and authorisation by the individual in question (or the person is deceased and unable to comment).
However, these stories hint at a complex near future where the trajectory of technology might enable bots to duplicate or recreate likenesses at scale, for any number of reasons.
“Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture.”
- Allen Ginsberg
The images we see affect our culture. Whether real or fake. Humanity may need to start learning about laws and punitive measures that protect individual likeness, in the same way that we understand that theft of our identity is a crime.
As it becomes harder to differentiate between the real and the fake, what individual and societal controls will prevent unauthorised copies of likeness?
