House passes bill to ban AI-generated media 90 days before elections – WPRI.com

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — R.I. House lawmakers unanimously voted in favor of legislation that would ban spreading so-called “deep fakes” 90 days before an election.

“Times have changed and technology that has the ability to create fake audio or video of political candidates becomes more convincing every single day,” said Rep. Jacquelyn Baginski, the bill’s sponsor. “The creation of these recordings or video in order to fool voters is nothing but malicious deception and it has no place in free and fair elections.”

“This bill will protect voters from falling for outright mistruths and lies while also protecting the First Amendment rights of digital creators,” she continued.

The legislation defines deep fakes, or synthetic media, as images, audio recordings or video recordings of someone’s “appearance, speech or conduct that has been intentionally manipulated with the use of generative adversarial network techniques or other digital technology to create a realistic but false image, audio or video.”

The ban itself would concern any depiction of political candidates that are made to look authentic and would “present a fundamentally different understanding or impression of the appearance, action or speech” than if it were real media.

If the person who made the deep fake discloses it is AI-generated, then this bill’s ban wouldn’t apply.

Candidates who are victims of this type of media within 90 days before an election can seek action in court against the creator.

The legislation also has support from R.I. Secretary of State Gregg Amore, who submitted written testimony to the R.I. House’s Committee on State Government and Elections on March 26.

This bill now heads to the R.I. Senate, where companion legislation has been sponsored by Sen. Louis DiPalma. That version had a committee hearing before the Judiciary Committee on March 7.

“At this point, the bill has been heard by committee,” Senate spokesperson Greg Paré told 12 News. “The Senate President will be reviewing the testimony and discussing the bill with the Chairwoman.”

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