[ad_1]
By Kanishka Singh
(Reuters) – Tennessee Governor Bill Lee on Thursday signed a bill aimed at protecting artists, including musicians, from unauthorized use of artificial intelligence.
The legislation is called the Law to Ensure Image and Voice Security (ELVIS).
BECAUSE IT IS IMPORTANT
While the presence of AI in music creation dates back to the 1950s, recent groundbreaking advances in generative AI, with robots now making music like digital pop stars, have divided opinion in the industry. Many experts say AI raises legal and ethical concerns.
Popularized last year by the ChatGPT language system, generative AI is capable of creating content that includes original sounds, lyrics or entire songs on its own, but artists often use simpler AI to improve their sound.
KEY QUOTES
The Tennessee legislation updates Tennessee’s personal rights protection law to include “protections for the voices of songwriters, performers and music industry professionals against the misuse of artificial intelligence,” the governor’s office said in a release.
Tennessee’s music industry supports more than 61,617 jobs statewide, contributes $5.8 billion to the gross domestic product and fills more than 4,500 music venues, according to the governor’s office.
Tennessee’s pre-existing law protected name, image and likeness, but did not specifically address new custom generative AI cloning models and services that enable impersonation and allow users to perform unauthorized fake work in the image and voice of others.
CONTEXT
More broadly, the rise of AI has also fueled a host of other concerns, including fears that it could be used to disrupt the democratic process, fuel fraud or lead to job losses. Europe is ahead of the United States in AI regulations, where lawmakers write rules.
Democratic US President Joe Biden’s administration is pushing lawmakers to regulate AI, but a polarized US Congress, where Republicans control the House of Representatives and Democrats control the Senate, has made little progress on approval of effective regulation.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Sandra Maler)