Late last year, this deepfake of Bruce Willis surprised the world with how real it looked.
A deepfake is an AI generated video that is intended to look like someone else, usually a celebrity. And this story has resurfaced because Bruce Willis recently refuted reports that he sold the rights to his likeness to the Russian company that made the deepfake. Instead, now it seems like he didn’t.
So the question has become, “who owns Bruce Willis”. And more broadly, “who owns anyone’s likeness”. Because AI is only going to make deepfake technology better, cheaper and more efficient. Within a few years, we’ll all be able to make deepfakes.
And the likelihood of that day creates all kind of moral and legal questions. Is making a deep fake free speech? Is it defamation? Is it passing off? Would can do it, what permission do you need to get, and how can it be commercialised?
This article delves into a lot of those questions and explains how the Bruce Willis deepfake is causing headaches in Hollywood today, but how it will be all of our problem in the future.
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