Res. No. 719

Resolution calling on the United States Congress to pass, and the President to sign H.R.9551/S.4875, the “Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act of 2024,” otherwise known as the NO FAKES Act, which would protect intellectual property rights in the voice and visual likeness of individuals.

By Council Members Menin and Louis

Whereas, According to the United States (“U.S.”) Department of State, the term “artificial intelligence” (“AI”) means a machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations or decisions influencing real or virtual environments; and

Whereas, AI and the concepts it embodies have dated back thousands of years with the earliest record being the creation of a mechanical pigeon in 400 BCE; and

Whereas, From Alan Turing’s publishing of the “Computer Machinery and Intelligence” in 1950, to the first driverless car in 1986, to the creation of Apple’s Siri in 2011, to the more recent advent of Chat GPT and Claude, AI has increasingly become ingrained in our lives; and

Whereas, Although AI may have made daily life more efficient or easier, there are some potential negative uses of AI, such as the increase in bad actors creating “deepfakes;” and

Whereas, According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”), deepfakes are a new type of threat categorized as synthetic media that use a form of AI or machine learning to create realistic videos, pictures, audio, and texts of events which never happened; and

Whereas, DHS notes that the threat from deepfakes and other synthetic media created by AI is not from AI technology per se, but from people’s inclination to believe what they see or hear, which can cause the rapid spreading of mis/disinformation about a person or event, and as the cost and resources to create usable deepfakes decreases with the rise in the availability of AI and other technologies, the likelihood of mis/disinformation spreading due to deepfakes will increase; and

Whereas, In recent years, New York State (“NYS”) has worked to ensure the safe use of AI throughout the state, including New York City (“NYC”), with the passage of bills that: criminalize the dissemination of deepfakes depicting a person engaged in sexual conduct; include a right of action against non-consensual sexual deepfakes and prohibit political deepfakes without a disclaimer; and limit the use of AI tools by state agencies for specific functions; and

Whereas, In an effort to protect the voices and visual likeness of all individuals from unauthorized computer-generated synthetic creations by AI and other technologies, the “Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act of 2024” (H.R.9551/S.4875), otherwise known as the NO FAKES Act, was introduced in Congress by Representative Maria Salazar and Senator Christopher Coons; and

Whereas, The NO FAKES Act looks to grant individuals federal intellectual property rights to their voice and visual likeness, allowing individuals to take action against creators of, and platforms hosting, unauthorized digital copies, and protect media platforms from liability, provided the reported content is taken down as soon as technically and practically feasible; and

Whereas, As NYC and NYS continues to ensure its’ residents are protected and safe from the harmful impacts that can be produced by AI, such as deepfakes, it is important that the federal government strengthen existing protections by passing the NO FAKES Act; now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Council of the City of New York calls upon the United States Congress to pass, and the President to sign H.R.9551/S.4875, the “Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act of 2024,” otherwise known as the NO FAKES Act, which would protect intellectual property rights in the voice and visual likeness of individuals.

KK

LS 18591

1/10/25