Actress Scarlett Johansson has decided to take legal action against a company that (mis)used AI to clone the actress in an advertisement.
This is information relayed by the magazine Variety : Scarlett Johansson recently took legal action against an application developer who used her name and image in an online advertisement, via artificial intelligence. For a few weeks/months now, we have been able to see “false” advertisements online, featuring film or music stars… without their consent.
Scarlett Johansson vs AI: fight!
In Scarlett Johansson’s sights, the company Convert Software, which is at the origin of a photo application using generative AI: Lisa AI. So far nothing reprehensible, except that to promote its application, the company has put online a spot of around twenty seconds, at the beginning of which we can see the actress during the filming of Black Widow.
Scarlett Johansson can then be heard asking: “ What’s up guys? It’s Scarlett and I want you to come with me “. The camera then pans away from the actress, while an AI-generated voice (imitating that of the actress) says: “ It’s not limited to avatars. You can also create images with texts and even videos. I think you shouldn’t miss this “.
And that’s just the beginning ?
Even so, at the bottom of the video, the words “ Images produced by Lisa AI. It has nothing to do with this person “, the actress, through her legal representatives, decided to take legal action.
As for Scarlett Johansson’s entourage, it has been confirmed that the actress has never been any spokesperson or ambassador for the application, and that her lawyer, Kevin Yorn, ” handled the situation legally “.
For several months now, AI has been able to distort reality in a very authentic way. We were notably able to observe an ultra realistic (but false) video by Morgan Freeman, without forgetting deepfakes for what concerns cinema and other techniques of voice cloning for the music industry.
Recently, it was Tom Hanks who was forced to post a message on Instagram, regarding an ad that uses his image, generated by AI, to promote “ a certain dental plan ”, without his consent. And that’s just the beginning ?
Source : The Verge
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