Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar has called on Congress to pass new, more protective laws on the use of artificial intelligence after a vulgar deepfake video of Sydney Sweeney's comments on American Eagle ads.
“Today, realistic deepfakes – AI-generated videos showing what someone has done or said – can circle the earth and land on millions of phones while the truth is still on landlines,” Klobuchar wrote in a guest essay for the New York Times published Wednesday. The article was entitled “Amy Klobuchar: What I Didn't Say About Sidney Sweeney.”
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“That's why it's urgent for Congress to pass new laws immediately to protect Americans by preventing likeness from being used to harm,” the senator continued. “I learned that lesson last month when my fake video was giving my opinion on actress Sidney Sweeney's jeans on everything.
In the video, the AI remakes Klobuchar's voice and asks Republicans to include Democrats.
“What we're saying is that we want expression,” Deepfer begins. “If Republicans have beautiful girls with perfect boobs for ads, we want Democrats as well. We want ugly, fat b.
She went on to explain that the actual footage came from the July 30th meeting. Meanwhile, Klobuchar led the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on data privacy. Klobuchar's only argument was about the “necessity for strong federal data privacy laws.” But a week later, Klobuchar said she was unsure when she saw the edited version of the meeting, which introduced words she had never used.
“That's when I hear my voice — but certainly not me — I'm spewing some vulgar and absurd criticism of the jeans ad campaign featuring Sidney Sweeney,” Klobuchar said. “AI's Deepfark featured me using the phrase “perfect boobs,” and Democrats lamented that “I'm too fat to wear jeans or too ugly to go outside.” I could quickly say that someone used footage from the hearing to make the Deepfark, but I didn't get around the fact that it looked very realistic. ”
Politicians said they tried their best to remove the video online or to be labeled with notes that read “digital changed content”, but her efforts failed when X “refused to defeat it.”
“It was using my caricatures to blow up the controversy where it didn't exist,” Klobuchar said. “It was something I was saying mean and I would like to think most people could recognize it as a fake, but some people thought it was real. […] X refused to remove or label it, but its own policy prohibits users from sharing “X” of “X” that includes “manipulated” or “contains media outside of context” that could lead to widespread confusion regarding public issues.
The video eventually reached other social media platforms. Tiktok deleted the video and Meta labeled it as AI. As for X, “X's response was that it didn't help the company add by getting the 'Community Note' and saying it was fake. ”
By the end of her essay, she shared research on deepfakes affecting others' views despite being fake, saying that artificial intelligence can be used to hurt social media users, calling for high-tech companies.
“Why do high-tech companies need to control our rights to our own images and voices?” Klobuchar asked. “Why can their shareholders and CEOs make more money from spreading viral content at the expense of our privacy and reputation?
She concluded by repeating her pleas for Congress to be involved.
“We can love technology and use technology, but we cannot give all our power to our own images and our privacy,” she writes. “It's time for Congress members to stand up for their constituents, stop currying favors with tech companies and set records straight. In democracy, we do that by enacting laws.
Amy Klobuchar's post is seeking new AI laws after the Sydney Sweeney Deepfark video went viral.
