One Virginia congressman wants more transparency from groups working on artificial intelligence.
Did Sam Altman steal the voice of Scarlett Johansson? That's a question that's troubling for Congressman Don Beyer, a Democrat from Alexandria – and why he introduced the AI Foundation Model Transparency Act
"Give us transparency into their algorithms," he says.
The idea is that the CEO of OpenAI should share the identity behind "Sky” – the now-suspended voice of the artificial intelligence bot ChatGPT. The Hollywood star, who played Black Widow in Avengers Endgame, says her voice was stolen.
"Sam Altman at Open AI on the other hand said, ‘Well no, that is not her voice, we used a different actor,’" the congressman explains. "Well, with transparency you could actually be able to tell which actor they used to create that voice."
The bill is not aimed at creating a new criminal penalty or a new civil penalty, although Congress is also considering those, too. Beyer is focused on building trust in an era of deep fakes.
"The most recent famous example was the Joe Biden robocalls in his New Hampshire primary where artificial intelligence was able to create a replica of his voice probably using it from earlier Biden vocal tapes," he says.
The bill would have the Federal Trade Commission enforce new transparency standards, and the legislation has support of SAG-AFTRA, the Authors Guild and Universal Music.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
