AI regulation to hit UK as lawmakers pledge to fight Deefakes

UK lawmakers are looking to explore strategies in the form of AI regulation that would tackle the growing problem of Deepfakes.

UK Labour Party Moves To Ban Censored Tools

The Labour Party has its focus on banning artificial intelligence tools that promote nudity and generate nonconsensual pornography. Consequently, the left-leaning think-tank Labour Together has come up with a policy paper that proposes legislation that designates the use of these nudification tools as a criminal offense.

If eventually implemented, the act of generating explicit contents with real images of individuals, will be punishable. Popular popstar Taylor Swift was recently a victim to these AI Deepfakes. Some Deepfake but yet convincing explicit photos of her showed up on the internet in January and it caused a lot of rancor, further compelling the authorities in the United States to look into the subject of AI regulation.

In the proposed policy paper from the Labour Party, there is a suggestion to insist that developers of AI tools and web hosting companies take caution to ensure that no harmful Deepfakes are produced under their watch. This proposal is coming as a strategy to mitigate spread of AI-generated content that will cause harm or misinformation to people, brands and organizations.

AI Regulation Necessary Amid Massive Growth

The rate at which Artificial Intelligence is diversifying and spreading underscores the need for AI regulation.

With several AI tools launching on a regular basis, there are growing concerns about the harm that these models are capable of inflicting. New tech startup Cognition Labs unleashed a “state-of-the-art” tool which also doubles as a first-of-its-kind AI model.

The tool which is dubbed Devin is able to perform autonomous coding and also fine-tune its AI models. This marks a revolution for coding but while these AI tools are beneficial, it is worth acknowledging that they can also be used to perpetrate unsavory acts, hence the need for AI regulation.

Noteworthy, the UK has been working on having a robust AI regulatory framework for a while. This includes committing £100 million to this AI framework in a bid to secure a safe yet progressive innovative environment.

Ultimately, the goal of the government is to ensure that every citizen is safe and their rights are not infringed on, whether through AI or other means.