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.

  • Armok_the_bunny@lemmy.world
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    11 days ago

    My only complaint about this is that the fine looks too low, unless it’s getting applied each separate time the ad appears somewhere.

    • OwOarchist@pawb.social
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      11 days ago

      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.

        • OwOarchist@pawb.social
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          11 days ago

          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.