It matters now because it's easy to do?
TS needs to protect her image as it's worth a lot of money. Doesn't matter if it's AI, Photoshop or some drawing. The same as any other Trademark owner, they have to protect it to risk losing it.
Nobody is claiming this will stop AI or stop future scenarios, that doesn't mean that TS shouldn't also agressively protect her image.
Otherwise honestly I don't think the law should get involved and I'm not going to waste any more time from my short life caring about this lol.
Because Swift is famous and because AI is involved they (and places like HN) are finally paying attention.
If this was just some random person, this would be a blip on nightly news - similar to the revengeporn website stuff.
It must be really interesting though, to be the person in all of Human History who is at the creation of a Humanity's awareness that controlling AI versions of our likeness is going to be an impactful and meaningful area in legal precedent for here to evermore.
Swift, IMO, should feel a certain sense of weird-luckiness? to literally the Human where we begin the discussion of protecting ourselves from AI fakes....
My question is, then, if Swift can be entirely in control of how her likeness is used in any context, then what about any random person's likeness being scanned, documented and analyzed by millions of camera surveillance feeds every day?
Its a weird tangent, but if Swift creates the foundation for (what would this be, case law? Precedent? Dont know what legal terms define this) - what impact could it have for people defending the even capture of their likeness by systems that use that likeness to develop a catalog of your biometric-behavors to track you, recreate you, catalog you, define you, and then have business systems use that data to make decisions upon or against you?
If I own all aspects of my biologics, then do I have ay agency over how data captured, and AI-ified, amy be used?
So she has the social and economic power to stand up for her rights, and enforce her existing likeness rights in the face of some widespread AI imagery that is violating those rights…
I’m not expecting precedent, just another sad example of how the rich and powerful have rights the rest of us don’t, because you have to assert those rights which requires lawyers which requires money and so… the status quo continues as it exists today… “nothing to see here, move along”… sadly.
That's why I think this is really important for everyone - and not just about fake sex tapes - but in how much we control our presence in the world, specifically at the intersection of our Digital existence and our Biological existence.
And this is imperative to get right, given that our Digital selves are effectively immortal from this point forward - even though they will ultimate just be boiled down to some coordinate in a vector graph for eternity.
Still a crime regardless of the victims notoriety
Did you miss the part about the images containing her being raped and assaulted? This isn't a deepfake ripoff concert or something.
This woman is being actively stalked in real life by multiple people. She literally needs 24/7 security to protect her from weirdos. I highly doubt she's going to care even the slightest about being part of the "discussion", and the fact that you'd even suggest she should "feel lucky" shows an incredible lack of empathy on your part.
Her personal circumstances suck - and it was insensitive for me to not mentino that, but I did so out of ignorance, because I dont care about taylor swift - not because I am lacking empathy.
SO, apologies for that. I stand my my point, and I hope this gets Swiftly resolved in a manner that beneficially covers all.