SAG-AFTRA spoke out Friday in opposition to pornographic AI photographs of Taylor Swift which have been circulating on social media, and reiterated help for laws to outlaw such photographs.

The actors’ union known as the photographs “upsetting, dangerous and deeply regarding.”

“The event and dissemination of faux photographs — particularly these of a lewd nature — with out somebody’s consent have to be made unlawful,” the union stated. “As a society, we’ve it in our energy to manage these applied sciences, however we should act now earlier than it’s too late.”

The performers’ union has been following this difficulty for years, and has beforehand expressed help for state and federal legal guidelines that may make it unlawful to distribute “deepfake” pornographic photographs that replicate somebody’s likeness with out consent.

The difficulty has grow to be a sizzling matter in Washington this week due to the photographs of Swift which have circulated on X, previously generally known as Twitter.

On the White Home press briefing on Friday, a reporter requested if President Biden supported laws to ban AI-generated porn photographs.

“It’s alarming,” stated Karine Jean-Pierre, the White Home press secretary. “We’re alarmed by the stories of the circulation of photographs that you simply simply laid out… There must be laws, clearly, to cope with this difficulty.”

Rep. Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., launched the Stopping Deepfakes of Intimate Photographs Act final 12 months. Fran Drescher, the SAG-AFTRA president, applauded it on the time.

“Sexual abuse, whether or not occurring bodily or digitally, ought to by no means be excused or permitted as ‘private expression,’ and it ought to by no means be tolerated,” she stated.

The union additionally helps broader laws, the NO AI FRAUDS Act, that may prohibit the usage of synthetic intelligence to distribute pretend replicas of actual folks with out consent — no matter whether or not the use was sexually specific.

AI was one of many key points within the SAG-AFTRA strike final 12 months. The union obtained contract provisions that require each consent and cost to be used of AI to digitally replicate an actor’s efficiency, although the contract didn’t cease studios from utilizing a mix of performances to create “artificial” actors.

“We help Taylor, and girls in all places who’re the victims of this type of theft of their privateness and proper to autonomy,” the union stated in its assertion on Friday.