How do we own ourselves in the 'post truth' era?

2/22/2023 3:28 pm | : 2 mins. | Share to:

With the era of internet AI driven fake videos and audio, I am finding myself wondering more and more about how individuals exist in the coming "post truth" years. Even beyond knowing what news is real and fake, which is terrifying enough.

Imagine, you call a company for customer service and part of those Terms you didn't read include them sampling your voice such that they can now deepfake you. Or walking into a store, which allows cameras positioned to do the rudimentary 360 degree scan needed for low res body insertion into video (such as what we're seeing from the NBA recently.)

Not that either scenario is explicitly for super villain-esque plans, but more just for owning your identity.

It is not hard to imagine a cellphone company offering to, for a fee, allow you to deepfake your friends as the voice for notifications on your phone.

Or imagine going to the theater and watching a movie, only to suddenly spot a doppelganger of yourself in the crowd at a pivotal movie scene. You weren't paid as an extra for this film, but because you attended [insert large conglomerate owned entity] you gave them rights to use your three dimensional likeness in perpetuity.

How do we, as individuals, opt out of giving up these rights? How does the government legislate in this era?

Do I need to wear t-shirts that say in blocktext, "I DO NOT CONSENT" or something similarly absurd?