It's Now Officially Illegal to Use AI to Impersonate a Human Actor in Hollywood

Acting Out

California has passed two new bills protecting actors and performers against AI, in a potentially precedent-setting moment for tech legislation across the country.

While these largely overlap with the AI safeguards that SAG-AFTRA passed last year, the new laws not only bolster those existing protections but extend them to everyone in California — not just to people working in front of a camera in Hollywood, as IndieWire notes.

Together, the bills, which were passed by Governor Gavin Newsom on Tuesday, make it illegal to use an AI-generated digital replica of an actor's likeness or voice — or technically, any Californian's — without their explicit consent.

If a studio is seeking permission to replicate a performer, the contract must specifically state how it plans to use the AI clone. Studios will also be prohibited from cloning deceased actors unless they have permission from their estates.

"It is a momentous day for SAG-AFTRA members and everyone else, because the AI protections we fought so hard for last year are now expanded upon by California law thanks to the Legislature and Governor Gavin Newsom," Fran Drescher, president of the labor union, said at its headquarters in LA. "They say as California goes, so goes the nation!"

Industry Hards

Taking this stance is significant for Newsom, who remains a controversial figure in the assessment of Silicon Valley bigwigs. In passing the laws, he's maintaining a delicate balancing act of appeasing California's biggest industries: Hollywood and big tech.

And because 35 of the world's top 50 AI startups are based in California, he could also be prefiguring how AI legislation will play out across the nation.

That balancing act isn't an easy thing to pull off, given that the rise of generative AI has meant that the two industries don't always see eye to eye. Or at the very least, the creatives that populate the entertainment industry have grown bitter about AI, even though the major studios that employ them are often capitulating to it.

Along with the protections for performers, Newsom also passed three laws to crackdown on AI deepfakes, making it illegal to create and distribute them with the intent to deceive voters during an election cycle.

Golden State's Goose

But what could be California's most consequential piece of AI law — which the industry is ardently advocating against — still hangs in the balance.

SB 1047, which was passed by state lawmakers last month but awaits Newsom's approval, would throw a spanner into the works by potentially holding tech companies responsible for the outputs of their AI models.

Newsom, so far, has hesitated on pulling the trigger, fearing that it could stymie AI development in the state.

"We dominate this space, and I don't want to lose that," Newsom said Tuesday, as quoted by Bloomberg. "The impact of signing wrong bills over the course of a few years could have a profound impact" on the state's competitiveness, he added.

But that's a whole other can of worms. It'll be interesting to see how California plans to enforce the sweeping set of regulations — also controversial — it's already passed.

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